a

GAO

United States General Accounting Office

Report to Congressional Committees

January 2004 ARCHITECT OF THE 

CAPITOL

Status Report on 

Implementation of 

Management Review 

Recommendations

GAO-04-299
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-299.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact J. Christopher 

Mihm, 202-512-6806 or mihmj@gao.gov. 

Highlights of GAO-04-299, a report to 

Congressional Committees 

January 2004

ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL 

Status Report on Implementation of 

Management Review Recommendations 

As discussed in GAO’s January 2003 report, many of AOC’s management 

problems were long-standing and its organizational transformation would 

take time to fully accomplish. Not surprisingly, AOC’s efforts in addressing 

these initial management review recommendations is very much a work in 

progress. Initial steps are being taken, but a great deal more needs to be 

done. Moreover, greater effort will have to be made if more timely 

improvements are to occur. Sustained commitment and assertive 

involvement of AOC’s leadership is key to addressing AOC’s long-standing 

weaknesses and instilling lasting change. 

AOC is taking the first steps in the development of its management and 

accountability framework, such as improving planning and organizational 

alignment through its draft strategic plan. AOC is also strengthening 

individual accountability for organizational goals through its senior 

executive performance management systems, but more progress can be 

made by aligning its employee performance management system with 

mission-critical goals. AOC needs to take additional steps to strengthen 

agencywide communications by providing opportunities to gather employee 

feedback sooner than fiscal year 2005 and by conducting a pilot of its 

congressional protocols. 

AOC is making some progress in improving its management 

infrastructure and internal control. AOC is addressing initial concerns 

about the lack of consistent human capital policies and procedures. Also, 

AOC has developed three broad-based action plans to achieve its strategy 

of institutionalizing financial management best practices. However, 

while efforts on individual action items associated with the three action 

plans have begun, many are not scheduled for completion until fiscal 

years 2006 and 2007. Much work remains to address unplanned action 

items and complete ongoing efforts in improving financial management. 

AOC is developing a new IT portfolio management process or investment 

framework, which it plans to implement in fiscal year 2004 and is also 

taking steps to develop and use EA. However, while AOC is generally 

implementing the kind of IT management reforms recommended, GAO 

makes additional recommendations to ensure that mature investment 

management and EA processes are developed and implemented. 

Finally, AOC is addressing GAO’s concern about worker safety by 

developing a hazard assessment and control policy, but this policy is not 

expected to be fully implemented in all jurisdictions until May 2006. Until 

AOC completes this policy implementation and its subsequent analysis in all 

jurisdictions, it will not be able to develop a comprehensive picture of AOC 

hazards. AOC is also taking steps to establish a project priority framework 

for better project management and accountability. Also, AOC has made 

some progress toward adopting a more strategic approach to recycling 

taking steps to clarify the mission of the program and establishing goals as 

part of its environmental program plan.

The Office of the Architect of the 

Capitol (AOC) plays an important 

role in supporting the effective 

functioning of Congress and its 

neighboring institutions. In 

January 2003, GAO conducted a 

comprehensive management 

review of AOC’s operations and 

made 35 recommendations to help 

AOC establish a strategic 

management and accountability 

framework, improve its 

management infrastructure and 

internal control, and address longstanding concerns. In February 

2003, the Conference Report 

mandated GAO to monitor progress 

being made on the implementation 

of the 35 management review 

recommendations. 

GAO recommends that AOC 

strengthen agencywide 

communications with employees 

and congressional stakeholders. 

GAO also recommends that AOC 

further improve its management 

infrastructure internal controls in 

the management of IT by planning 

for and implementing mature 

investment management and 

enterprise architecture (EA) 

practices. 

GAO provided a draft of this report 

to the Architect of the Capitol in 

December 2003 for his review and 

comment. The Architect generally 

agreed with our findings, although 

there are some areas of 

disagreement in IT, worker safety, 

and recycling. 
Page i GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

Contents

Letter 1

Results in Brief 2

Background 5

Objective, Scope, and Methodology 5

AOC Has Begun Establishing a Strategic Management and 

Accountability Framework, but Communications with Employees 

and Stakeholders Can Be Improved 6

Recommendations for Future Action 10

Progress Is Being Made in Establishing Management Infrastructure 

and Internal Control, but Considerable Work Remains Before 

Effective Information Technology Management Capability Will Be 

in Place 10

Recommendations for Future Action 14

AOC is Beginning to Address Long-standing Issues in Worker Safety, 

Project Management, and Recycling 15

Concluding Observations 18

Agency Comments 19

Appendixes

Appendix I: Strategic Management 22

Appendix II: Strategic Human Capital Management 40

Appendix III: Financial Management 45

Appendix IV: Information Technology 51

Appendix V: Worker Safety 60

Appendix VI: Project Management 71

Appendix VII: Recycling 80

Appendix VIII: Comments from the Architect of the Capitol 87

GAO Comments 106

Tables Table 1: AOC’s Strategic Focus Areas and Strategic Goals 23

Figures Figure 1: Examples of Workforce Data That Are Collected and 

Analyzed by Other Federal Agencies 36
Contents

Page ii GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

Abbreviations

AOC Architect of the Capitol 

BCA Building Condition Assessments

CFO Chief Financial Officer

CIO Chief Information Officer

COO Chief Operating Officer

EA Enterprise Architecture

EAC Employee Advisory Council

FMA Facility Management Assistant

GC General Contractor

GPRA Government Performance and Results Act

GSA General Services Administration

HRMD Human Resources Management Division

IT Information Technology

JHA Job Hazard Analysis

JOSH Jurisdiction Occupational Safety and Health

NAS National Academy of Sciences

OAP Office of the Attending Physician

OCFO Office of the Chief Financial Officer

ODC Office of Design and Construction

OIRM Office of Information Resource Management

OSH Occupational Safety and Health

OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration

PCES Performance Communication Evaluation System

PIC Project Information Center

PHS Public Health Service

PRP Performance Review Process

SED Safety and Environmental Division

SHEC Safety, Health and Environmental Council

WFPM Office of Workforce Planning and Management

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Page 1 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

United States General Accounting Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

A

January 30, 2004 Letr

The Honorable Ben Nighthorse Campbell

Chairman

The Honorable Richard J. Durbin

Ranking Minority Member

Subcommittee on Legislative Branch 

Committee on Appropriations

United States Senate

The Honorable Jack Kingston

Chairman

The Honorable James P. Moran

Ranking Minority Member

Subcommittee on Legislative

Committee on Appropriations

House of Representatives

The Honorable Trent Lott

Chairman

The Honorable Christopher J. Dodd

Ranking Minority Member

Committee on Rules and Administration

United States Senate

In January 2003, we issued a management review of the Office of the 

Architect of the Capitol (AOC) that contained 35 recommendations to 

assist AOC in establishing a strategic management and accountability 

framework to transform its organization.1

 One of the most important issues 

raised in our January 2003 report was the need for Congress to create a 

Chief Operating Officer (COO) position to serve as the central leadership 

point to improve AOC’s executive decision-making capacity and 

accountability. Congress accepted this suggestion. The Architect of the 

Capitol appointed the first COO on July 28, 2003.2

 As the first of our reports 

on AOC’s implementation of the recommendations contained in our 

1

U.S. General Accounting Office, Architect of the Capitol: Management and Accountability 

Framework Needed for Organizational Transformation, GAO-03-231 (Washington, D.C.: 

Jan. 17, 2003).

2

Section 1203 of Division H, Title I, Pub. L. No. 108-7, Feb. 20, 2003 (Consolidated 

Appropriations Resolution, 2003).
Page 2 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

January 2003 report, this status report will provide the Architect and the 

agency’s new COO with information that can assist them in elevating, 

integrating, and institutionalizing attention and accountability for certain 

key management functions and leading transformational change within 

AOC. 

The Conference Report accompanying the fiscal year 2003 Legislative 

Branch Appropriations Act mandated GAO to monitor the implementation 

of the recommendations of our January 2003 report.3

 This report discusses 

the progress AOC has made in establishing its strategic management and 

accountability framework, instituting management infrastructure and 

controls, and addressing long-standing program issues. As such, this report 

does not directly address issues associated with major AOC projects, such 

as the Capitol Visitor Center and the Capitol Power Plant. Rather, the 

January 2003 report and this status report concern the establishment of 

AOC’s strategic management and accountability framework and the 

management infrastructure and internal control AOC needs to have in 

place to be successful in all its efforts, including its major projects. Our 

January 2003 report concluded that AOC needs to improve its internal 

control, which is synonymous with management control, and is integral to 

any organization. Internal control is comprised of the plans, methods, and 

procedures used to meet missions, goals, and objectives, and that help 

safeguard assets and prevent and detect errors and fraud. (For a detailed 

assessment of AOC’s progress addressing each of our 35 management 

review recommendations, as well as an expanded explanation of the basis 

for our additional recommendations, see appendixes I through VII.)

Results in Brief As we discussed in our January 2003 report, many of AOC’s management 

problems have been longstanding, and its organizational transformation 

would take years to fully accomplish. Not surprisingly, therefore, AOC’s 

progress in addressing our initial recommendations remains very much a 

work in progress. Initial steps are being taken but a great deal more needs 

to be done. Moreover, greater effort will have to be made if more timely 

improvements are to occur. Sustained commitment and assertive 

involvement of AOC’s leadership are key to addressing long-standing 

weaknesses and instilling lasting change.

3

H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 108-10, at 1225 (2003).
Page 3 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

AOC is taking the first steps in the development of its strategic 

management and accountability framework and addressing the concerns 

we identified in our January 2003 report, such as improving planning and 

organizational alignment through the development of its strategic plan. 

This framework and the accompanying draft plans provide a basis for 

AOC’s ongoing effort to reassess its organizational structure to ensure that 

it is aligned to meet its goals, as well as provide high quality—and 

accountable—products and services to its clients and customers. 

AOC is also strengthening individual accountability for organizational goals 

through its senior executive performance management systems, but more 

progress can be made with aligning employee performance management 

systems with agency strategic goals. On the other hand, a key component 

of a successful transformation is ongoing communication with customers, 

stakeholders, and employees; without effective communications, 

transforming AOC will be difficult. In that regard, we are making additional 

recommendations that AOC can take to strengthen agencywide 

communications by providing opportunities to gather employee feedback 

sooner than is currently planned and conduct a pilot of its agency 

congressional protocols. (For details on the progress of the development of 

AOC’s strategic management framework, see appendix I.)

At the same time, AOC is taking the first steps towards improving its 

management infrastructure and internal control. AOC is addressing our 

concerns about the lack of consistent human capital policies and 

procedures by drafting its absence and leave policy, providing guidelines 

for premium pay eligibility, and completing its policy and procedures for 

administering pay flexibilities. (See appendix II for details on the progress 

of AOC’s implementation of the recommendations we made in strategic 

human capital management.) In addition, AOC has developed three broadbased action plans that are intended to accomplish its goal of 

institutionalizing financial management best practices that support the 

effective delivery of programs and services. These action plans, if properly 

carried out, represent a reasonable basis for achieving AOC’s goal of 

institutionalizing financial management best practices that support the 

effective delivery of programs and services. However, while efforts have 

begun to implement individual action items associated with the three 

action plans, none of the individual action items has been completed, and 

many are not scheduled for completion until fiscal years 2006 and 2007. 

Also, planning for certain action items has not yet begun, and for some is 

not scheduled to begin until mid-fiscal year 2004. While AOC has made 

progress since our January 2003 report, much work remains to address 
Page 4 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

unplanned action items and complete ongoing planning and 

implementation efforts. (See appendix III for details on the progress of the 

implementation of the recommendation we made in financial 

management.) 

As part of its efforts to adopt a strategic, agencywide approach to 

leveraging information technology (IT) to advance strategic agency goals, 

AOC is developing an IT investment management process, which it plans to 

implement in fiscal year 2004, and is also taking steps to develop and use an 

enterprise architecture (EA), or modernization blueprint, to guide and 

constrain its IT investments. These and other IT management 

improvements demonstrate AOC's commitment to implementing the kind 

of IT management reforms that are embodied in our recommendations. 

However, AOC has much to do before it fully implements our 

recommendations, and we are making additional recommendations to 

better ensure that its investment management and EA efforts are 

successful. (See appendix IV for details on the progress of the 

implementation of the recommendations we made concerning information 

technology management.) 

Finally, AOC is also making some progress in its efforts to institutionalize 

accountability concerning such long-standing issues as worker safety, 

project management, and recycling. AOC is addressing our concern about a 

lack of clearly defined and documented policies and procedures for 

reporting hazards by developing a hazard assessment and control policy, 

but the policy is not expected to be fully implemented until May 2006. Until 

AOC completes the implementation of this policy and its subsequent 

analysis across all jurisdictions, it will not be able to develop a 

comprehensive picture of AOC hazards. (See appendix V for details on the 

progress of the implementation of the recommendations we made on 

worker safety.) AOC is also taking steps to establish a framework for better 

project management and accountability by establishing a process to assign 

project priorities based on clearly defined, well-documented, consistently 

applied, and transparent criteria. (See appendix VI for details on the 

progress of the implementation of the recommendations we made in 

project management.) In addition, AOC has made some progress toward 

adopting a more strategic approach to its recycling program by taking steps 

to clarify the mission of the recycling program and establish program goals 

as part of its environmental program plan, as we recommended in our 

January 2003 report. (See appendix VII for details on the progress of the 

implementation of the recommendations we made on recycling.) 
Page 5 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

The Architect generally agreed with the findings of our report, although 

there are some areas of disagreement in information technology, worker 

safety, and recycling. His written response is reprinted in app. VIII.

On December 17, 2003, we provided the Architect with our draft report for 

his review and comment. The Architect generally agreed with the findings 

of our report, although there are some disagreements in the areas of 

information technology, worker safety, and recycling issues. His written 

comments and our response, which includes our comments on the 

concerns raised by the Architect, are reprinted in app. VIII. 

Background AOC is responsible for the maintenance, renovation, and new construction 

of all buildings within the Capitol Hill complex. Organizationally, AOC is 

made up of a centralized staff that performs administrative functions and 

“jurisdictions” that handle their own day-to day operations, such as the 

Capitol building, the House and Senate office buildings, the Library of 

Congress, and the Supreme Court, and support the operation of Congress 

and its neighboring institutions. The historic nature and high-profile use of 

many of these buildings creates a complex environment in which to carry 

out this mission. AOC must perform its duties in an environment that 

requires balancing the divergent needs of congressional leadership, 

committees, individual members of Congress, congressional staffs, and the 

visiting public. The challenges of operating in this environment were 

compounded by the events of September 11, 2001, and the resulting need 

for increased security and safety. 

Objective, Scope, and 

Methodology

The Conference Report on the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, 2003, 

directed us to monitor and evaluate AOC’s progress in implementing its 

management plan that addressed the recommendations contained in our 

January 2003 report. Accordingly, our objective for this report was to 

assess the progress AOC is making in addressing our findings and 

implementing our recommendations since the issuance of our January 2003 

report. In this regard, this report addresses the recommendations we made 

in our January 2003 report, which concerned the areas of strategic planning 

and management, human capital, financial management, information 

technology, worker safety, project management, and recycling. 

To address our objective, we collected from AOC documentation of the 

organization’s implementation of our recommendations, which we used to 
Page 6 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

assess the progress made in addressing the issues underlying these 

recommendations. For example, we reviewed documents such as AOC’s 

draft strategic and performance plans, draft communications plan, IT 

investment framework, centralized IT management policy, initial versions 

of EA products, occupational safety and health program plan, master safety 

plan, project management evaluation and screening matrix, and pollution 

prevention planning initiative, among others. We also reviewed 

documentation to see that policies had been changed and meetings had 

taken place. We also interviewed AOC officials to determine the status of 

the organization’s progress on our recommendations. In addition, we also 

continue to meet regularly with the COO to discuss the status of 

improvement efforts underway at AOC and other issues of mutual interest 

and concern. We performed our work in Washington, D.C., from July 2003 

through November 2003 in accordance with generally accepted 

government auditing standards.

AOC Has Begun 

Establishing a Strategic 

Management and 

Accountability 

Framework, but 

Communications with 

Employees and 

Stakeholders Can Be 

Improved

In our January 2003 report, we stated that to better serve Congress, AOC 

needed to build its capability to define goals, set priorities, ensure 

followthrough, monitor progress, and establish accountability for results to 

achieve its agenda for organizational transformation. We made 11 

recommendations that would help AOC establish a management and 

accountability framework to lead and execute its organizational 

transformation. To adopt the elements of the management and 

accountability framework—strategic planning, organizational alignment, 

communications, performance measurement, and strategic human capital 

management—and build on efforts under way at AOC, we recommended 

that the Architect of the Capitol 

• improve strategic planning and organizational alignment by involving 

key congressional and other external stakeholders in AOC’s strategic 

planning efforts and in any organizational changes that may result from 

these efforts; 

• strengthen accountability for results by developing annual goals, 

measuring performance, and strategically managing human capital to 

support achieving those goals and measures, such as creating a line of 

sight by linking AOC’s senior executive and employee performance 

management system; and

• develop a comprehensive strategy to improve internal and external 

communications by completing the development of congressional 
Page 7 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

protocols with stakeholder involvement and continuing to regularly 

measure customer satisfaction AOC-wide, among other strategies, such 

as providing opportunities for employee feedback.

AOC is taking the first steps towards establishing our recommended 

strategic management and accountability framework. For example, AOC is 

making important progress in improving strategic planning and 

organizational alignment by issuing draft strategic and performance plans, 

though both are still subject to revision and approval by AOC’s new COO.4

Specifically, in March 2003, AOC issued its draft strategic plan for fiscal 

years 2003-2007, which outlines four strategic focus areas and 

corresponding strategic goals, and a draft performance plan for fiscal years 

2003-2007 with a particular focus on fiscal years 2003-2004, which provides 

the specific action plans and milestones for achieving the goals and 

objectives in the draft strategic plan. This framework and the 

accompanying draft plans provide a basis for AOC’s ongoing effort to 

reassess its organizational structure to ensure that it is aligned to meet its 

goals, as well as create and administer high quality—and accountable—

products and services. 

Many of the action plans and milestone dates that AOC has outlined in its 

draft performance plan are scheduled to occur over the next several years. 

Because AOC’s organizational transformation agenda is a long-term 

process, it is especially important that AOC leadership closely monitor the 

interim activities, action plans, and milestones outlined in its draft 

performance plan to ensure that it meets intended deadlines and completes 

its transformation. As we noted in our January 2003 report, sustained top 

leadership attention is essential to overcome an organization’s natural 

resistance to change, marshal the resources needed to implement the 

change, and build and maintain the organizationwide commitment to new 

ways of doing business. 

In addition, AOC is also involving key congressional stakeholders, as we 

recommended, in the development of its agency draft strategic plan and is 

requesting input on the strategic direction of the agency. AOC’s high-level 

summary of the stakeholder reaction it received demonstrates the value of 

4

At the time of our review, the COO had not approved the agency’s draft strategic and draft 

performance plans. We received notification that the COO had approved and finalized AOC’s 

strategic and performance plans on January 13, 2004. Therefore, throughout our report, we 

refer to the strategic and performance plans as draft because at the time of our review, these 

documents were not yet approved.
Page 8 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

such outreach. The need for a strong and continuing communications 

strategy, an augmented fire safety strategy, and creating a “living” planning 

and improvement approach that becomes part of AOC’s culture, were 

among the important issues raised by stakeholders. Building on its 

strategic planning efforts, it is important that AOC continues to involve key 

congressional, as well as other stakeholders, in its strategic planning 

process, and keeps them informed of any operational and organizational 

changes resulting from this planning process. 

In addition, AOC is making progress in strengthening individual 

accountability for organizational goals—creating a line of sight—by linking 

its senior executive performance management system, known as the 

Performance Review Process (PRP), with its draft agency strategic goals, 

as we also recommended. However, AOC has not made as much progress in 

linking its employee performance management system, known as the 

Performance Communication Evaluation System (PCES) to its agency 

strategic goals. We have reported that high performing organizations align 

performance expectations of top leadership with goals and then cascade 

those expectations down to lower levels.5

 According to the Director of the 

AOC Human Resource Management Division (HRMD), to align PCES with 

PRP, AOC plans to first consolidate its multiple jurisdictional rating cycles 

into one cycle and then expects to incorporate the agency’s strategic goals 

into PCES by January 2005. While consolidating the multiple jurisdictional 

employee performance management cycles may be helpful in the 

administration of its performance reviews, AOC does not need to wait for 

this consolidation of performance review cycles to integrate its strategic 

goals into PCES. By linking both its senior executive and employee 

performance management systems to agency strategic goals, AOC can 

improve the strategic management of its human capital and help achieve 

these goals. 

Furthermore, AOC is progressing in establishing a communications 

strategy and has developed its first agencywide communications plan, as 

recommended in our January 2003 report, and included conducting 

employee focus groups or surveys as part of that plan. According to the 

Deputy Chief of Staff, funds to conduct AOC’s employee focus groups or 

surveys were requested after the fiscal year 2004 budget submission in 

5

U.S. General Accounting Office, Results-Oriented Cultures: Creating a Clear Linkage 

between Individual Performance and Organizational Success, GAO-03-488 (Washington, 

D.C.: Mar. 14, 2003).
Page 9 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

early December 2002. Therefore, AOC plans to conduct its employee focus 

groups or surveys in fiscal year 2005. Our own experiences at GAO have 

shown that obtaining employee views, such as through focus groups, need 

not be a resource intensive effort and that in any case, the benefits often far 

exceed the incremental costs. We recently reported that because people 

are the drivers of any organizational transformation, it is vital to monitor 

their attitudes.6

 As such, AOC employees need to see that AOC top 

leadership not only listens to their concerns, but also takes action and 

makes appropriate adjustments to the transformation in a visible and 

timely way. Because of the importance of considering employee views 

during an organizational transformation, we recommend that AOC not wait 

until fiscal year 2005 to conduct its planned employee focus groups or 

surveys to gather feedback. 

Moreover, as we recommended, AOC completed the development of its 

congressional protocols on June 30, 2003, to strengthen communications 

with key stakeholders and plans to meet with congressional stakeholders 

to discuss these protocols and issue final protocols by March 31, 2004. As 

stated in our January 2003 report, the purpose of agency protocols is to 

help create a basic understanding between AOC and its stakeholders of 

how AOC’s efforts and resources can be targeted at the highest priorities. 

Protocols also foster transparency about how decisions and tradeoffs can 

be made and services deployed given the competing demands that confront 

AOC, and how those demands and resources require careful and 

continuous balancing. According to AOC officials, although the 

development of its congressional protocols is complete, implementing 

these protocols may be difficult because of stakeholder concerns about 

their potential effect on decreasing levels of service. In our January 2003 

report, we noted that we had worked closely with Congress on the 

development of our own congressional protocols, along with careful pilot 

testing, and then implemented our final protocols in 1999. AOC needs to 

discuss with its stakeholders how the use of these protocols will help AOC 

balance immediate needs with the achievement of overall agency strategic 

goals. A pilot test would provide AOC and its customers an opportunity to 

test the application of the protocols to the various types of customer needs 

AOC confronts and to revise those protocols based on feedback obtained 

during the pilot. 

6

U.S. General Accounting Office, Results-Oriented Cultures: Implementation Steps to 

Assist Mergers and Organizational Transformations, GAO-03-669 (Washington, D.C.: Jul. 

2, 2003).
Page 10 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

Recommendations for 

Future Action

To further progress in developing its strategic management and 

accountability framework and improve communications agencywide, we 

recommend that the Architect of the Capitol take the following actions

• gather and analyze employee feedback from focus groups or surveys 

before fiscal year 2005, as well as communicate how it is taking actions 

to address any identified employee concerns 

• conduct a pilot of AOC congressional protocols in one or more of its 

jurisdictions to determine how well protocols would work in addressing 

customer requests for service, while balancing the demands of multiple 

requests with the strategic plan and corresponding project priorities of 

the agency. 

Progress Is Being Made 

in Establishing 

Management 

Infrastructure and 

Internal Control, but 

Considerable Work 

Remains Before 

Effective Information 

Technology 

Management 

Capability Will Be in 

Place

In our January 2003 report, we made nine recommendations to help AOC 

improve its management infrastructure and internal control to support its 

organizational transformation initiative. In particular, we stated effective 

internal control also could help AOC manage change and cope with shifting 

environments and evolving demands and priorities. We found that AOC 

would need to further develop and consistently apply transparent human 

capital policies and procedures to help encourage trust in management. 

Additionally, we stated that AOC must continue improving its approach to 

financial management to support effective and efficient program 

management by developing and implementing effective budget formulation 

and execution policies and procedures that govern capital projects and 

operating activities AOC-wide. We also noted that AOC needed to adopt an 

agencywide approach to information technology management to position 

itself to optimize the contribution of information technology to agency 

mission performance. Specifically, we recommended that AOC

• strengthen and consistently implement its human capital policies, 

procedures, and processes, such as developing a consistent agencywide 

leave policy, assessing ways in which AOC management could better 

gather and analyze data on employee relations issues, and establishing a 

direct reporting relationship between the Ombudsperson and the 

Architect; 

• continue to improve AOC’s approach to financial management by 

developing strategies to institutionalize financial management practices 
Page 11 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

that will support budgeting, financial, and program management at AOC; 

and

• adopt an agencywide approach to information technology management 

by establishing appropriate leadership and developing the policies, 

procedures, and tools needed to effectively and efficiently manage 

information technology resources across the agency.

AOC is taking the first steps towards improving its management 

infrastructure and internal control, though in some cases, additional steps 

need to be taken to fully address the findings of our January 2003 report. 

For example, AOC is making important progress in addressing our 

recommendation to develop and implement agencywide human capital 

policies and procedures by (1) drafting its employee absence and leave 

policy, still pending review and approval by the Architect, (2) providing 

guidelines to its workforce for determining eligibility for Sunday premium 

pay, and (3) completing its policy and procedures for administering pay 

flexibilities. The issuance of these policies is important to addressing the 

concerns raised by AOC employees when we conducted employee focus 

groups as part of our January 2003 report. AOC’s HRMD director told us 

that managers and supervisors are now being held accountable through its 

employee performance management systems for the consistent application 

of human capital policies and procedures, such as leave granting, overtime, 

and giving employee awards. As part of its management and oversight 

responsibilities of human capital policies, it is important that AOC senior 

management and HRMD continually monitor whether supervisors and 

managers are fairly administering the policies concerning leave, rewards, 

and recognition. AOC could also use information gathered during employee 

focus groups, employee satisfaction surveys, and informal feedback from 

employees to monitor employee views on the administration of these 

policies.

Furthermore, as we recommended, AOC has developed and begun to 

implement strategies designed to institutionalize financial management 

best practices. The Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) has 

established three broad-based action plans to improve financial 

management practices at AOC: (1) build a foundation of financial control 

and accountability, (2) assess the financial management organization’s 

current role in meeting mission objectives and organize financial 

management to add value, and (3) improve forward-looking analysis, train 

managers to understand how to use financial information, and improve the 

partnership between financial management and operations. These action 
Page 12 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

plans, if properly carried out, represent a reasonable basis for achieving 

AOC’s goal of institutionalizing financial management best practices that 

support the effective delivery of programs and services. However, while 

AOC has established three action plans to address our recommendation 

and begun efforts to implement them, none of the individual action items 

associated with the three action plans has been completed, and many are 

not scheduled for completion until fiscal years 2006 and 2007. Furthermore, 

planning for certain items has not yet begun, and for some is not scheduled 

to begin until mid-fiscal year 2004. While AOC has made progress since our 

January 2003 report, much work remains to address unplanned action 

items and complete ongoing planning and implementation efforts. 

AOC is also beginning to address its IT investment management challenges. 

We found when preparing our January 2003 report that AOC did not have 

an agencywide, portfolio-based approach to investment management. 

Thus, we recommended that AOC develop a detailed plan to guide the 

development and implementation of such an approach, focusing first on 

controlling existing projects and establishing the management structures to 

implement the portfolio-based project selection process. Such an approach 

helps an organization measure the progress of existing projects and 

continually assess proposed and ongoing projects as an integrated and 

competing set of investment options. 

In response, AOC is developing a new IT portfolio management process, 

referred to as its investment framework, which it plans to implement in 

fiscal year 2004. AOC’s IT policy, signed by the Architect, states that the 

framework is to provide an effective means to select projects that best 

support the agency’s mission. A draft version of the framework, completed 

in October 2003, is organized along a “select, control, and evaluate” model. 

To execute the select, control, and evaluate processes, the framework 

specifies four management structures—an architecture and standards 

committee, a project management board, a business systems 

modernization office, and an investment review board, with AOC defining 

the memberships of each of these entities. In January 2004, AOC stated that 

it has begun using the framework to control all fiscal year 2004 

investments. An agency official also told us that AOC intends to fully 

implement the framework by May 2004.

AOC’s actions partially address our recommendation. Specifically, we 

recommended that the agency focus first on detailing and implementing 

processes to control existing investments and that efforts to develop and 

implement these processes be guided by a detailed plan. Although AOC 
Page 13 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

states that it has revised its project investment review board to include key 

senior agency leaders, it has not focused first on controlling existing IT 

investments. For AOC to implement effective IT investment management 

processes, it is important that it follow our previous recommendation on 

establishing a foundation for its investment management framework. In 

building on this foundation, AOC needs to take additional steps to help it 

execute the more mature investment management processes provided for 

in our investment management guide.7

Moreover, AOC is taking steps to develop and use an EA. We recommended 

that AOC develop, implement, and maintain an EA, starting with 

developing an architecture policy, establishing executive oversight, and 

designating a chief enterprise architect. Our experience with federal 

agencies has shown that attempting to modernize IT environments without 

an EA to guide and constrain investments often results in systems that are 

duplicative, not well integrated, unnecessarily costly to maintain and 

interface, and ineffective in supporting mission goals. The development, 

implementation, and maintenance of architectures are recognized 

hallmarks of successful private and public organizations that effectively 

exploited IT in meeting their mission goals. In contrast, we reported in our 

January 2003 report that AOC did not have an EA or the management 

foundation needed to successfully develop one. 

In response to our recommendation, AOC has issued an EA policy and 

assigned the Office of Information Resource Management (OIRM) 

responsibility for developing and maintaining the architecture. AOC has 

also assigned responsibility for guiding and approving EA development to 

the agency’s senior policy committee, which is composed of 

representatives from across the agency. AOC has committed to hire a chief 

enterprise architect and will request funds to do so in its fiscal year 2005 

budget. AOC has also established a unit to provide technical and 

managerial support, selected a framework to guide development, and has 

prepared initial versions of its existing and target architectures and a plan 

for migrating from its existing to its target states. The agency states that the 

Deputy Chief of Staff has recently approved these products.

7

U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology Investment Management: A 

Framework for Assessing and Improving Process Maturity, Version 1, GAO/AIMD-10.1.23 

(Washington, D.C.: May 2000).
Page 14 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

Despite these steps, much work remains to satisfy our January 2003 

recommendation aimed at establishing the management foundation for 

developing and using an EA. For example, the agency has not yet hired a 

chief enterprise architect and has not ensured that adequate resources are 

devoted to the program, that architecture environments are described in 

terms of performance and security, and that metrics are used to measure 

EA progress. In addition to addressing these architecture management 

foundational needs, AOC will need to take additional steps to implement 

those architecture management practices associated with effectively 

completing, maintaining, and implementing an EA that are defined in our 

architecture management guide.8

Improving AOC’s organizational internal control will help to support its 

overall management infrastructure, and AOC is doing so by issuing 

consistent agencywide human capital policies and procedures. AOC is also 

improving its overall approach to financial management by developing 

action plans and beginning to implement these plans to institutionalize 

sound financial management practices. AOC has also recognized that 

adopting a corporate approach to IT management is a key enabler of its 

strategy for organizational improvement, and it has demonstrated its 

commitment to do so. However, until AOC completes and implements 

plans for improvement that are consistent with all our recommendations, it 

will be challenged in its ability to optimize the contribution of IT to agency 

mission performance. 

Recommendations for 

Future Action

We recommend that to further its progress in the management of its 

information technology, the Architect of the Capitol

• plan for and implement those practices in our IT investment 

management guide associated with corporate, portfolio-based 

investment decision making, such as (1) implementing criteria to select 

investments that will best support the organization’s strategic goals, 

objectives, and mission, (2) using these criteria to consistently analyze 

and prioritize all IT investments, (3) ensuring that the optimal 

investment portfolio with manageable risks and returns is selected and 

funded, and (4) overseeing each investment within the portfolio to 

8

U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology: A Framework for Assessing and 

Improving Enterprise Architecture Management, GAO-03-584G (Washington, D.C.: April 

2003).
Page 15 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

ensure that it achieves its cost, benefit, schedule, and risk expectations; 

and 

• plan for and implement the practices in our architecture management 

guide associated with leveraging an EA for organizational 

transformation, such as (1) ensuring that adequate resources are 

devoted to the program (funding, people, tools, and technology), (2) 

ensuring that the architecture describes both the “as is” and the “to be” 

environments in terms of performance, (3) ensuring that architecture 

business, performance, information and data, applications and services, 

and technology descriptions address security, and (4) ensuring that 

metrics are used to measure EA progress, quality, compliance, and 

return on investment. 

AOC is Beginning to 

Address Long-standing 

Issues in Worker 

Safety, Project 

Management, and 

Recycling

In our January 2003 report, we made 15 recommendations to help AOC 

address long-standing program issues, worker safety, project management, 

and recycling. We noted that both the strategic management and 

accountability framework and improving management infrastructure and 

other internal controls that support AOC’s transformation cut across the 

agency’s programs and influence its performance in all areas critical to 

achieving its mission, especially program areas of long-standing concern to 

AOC’s employees and congressional stakeholders. We stated that the 

Architect declared safety his number one priority; nonetheless, relating 

safety to other pressing priorities and developing a clear strategy for how 

working safely will become the cultural norm, was still a work in progress 

at the AOC. Similarly, we reported that AOC had adopted industry best 

practices for project management, but implementation was uneven and 

could benefit from stronger leadership and improvements in performance 

and financial management, priority setting, communication, and strategic 

management of human capital. Finally, although AOC had recently made 

improvements to the House and Senate recycling programs, contamination 

of recycled materials remained high, and the goals for the overall program 

remained unclear. Specifically, we recommended that the Architect of the 

Capitol

• improve the overall approach to worker safety in identifying 

performance measures, clearly defining policies and procedures for 

reporting hazards, establishing a consistent system for conducting 

investigations and followup, establishing a safety training curriculum, 

assigning clear responsibility for tracking worker safety employee 

training, clarifying the role of the Office of the Attending Physician 
Page 16 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

(OAP) in helping AOC to meet its safety goals, and establishing a senior 

management work group to routinely discuss worker compensation 

issues; 

• improve its overall approach to project management by developing a 

Capitol Hill complex master plan and completing building condition 

assessments, developing a transparent process to prioritize agency 

capital projects, developing tools to effectively communicate priorities 

and progress of projects, clearly defining project-management-related 

measures, and aligning project management staff and resources with 

mission-critical goals; and 

• improve its overall approach to its recycling program by developing a 

clear mission and goals, developing a performance measurement system 

to support accomplishing its recycling program, and examining the 

roles, responsibilities, and accountability of its recycling program staff. 

AOC is making progress in addressing long-standing areas of concern, 

though much remains to be done. For example, to address our concern 

regarding the lack of clearly defined and documented policies and 

procedures for reporting hazards, AOC has plans to develop a Hazard 

Assessment and Control policy, but it is not expected to be fully 

implemented across all jurisdictions until May 2006. As a key component in 

developing this, AOC (1) plans to identify hazards associated with specific 

job tasks or Job Hazard Analysis (JHA),9

 (2) has created a schedule for 

completing each JHA, and (3) contracted with the Public Health Service to 

identify hazards associated with job tasks in each jurisdiction. According to 

AOC officials, the JHA process has been completed for two jurisdictions, 

the Senate office buildings and the Construction Management Division. 

While a majority of the jurisdictions await full development and 

implementation of the Hazard Assessment and Control policy, each 

jurisdiction continues to rely upon its own hazard reporting processes. 

Also, AOC has established a plan and initiated actions to improve the 

reporting of hazards, though the development and implementation of 

agencywide policy and procedures for hazard reporting is expected to take 

9

AOC’s Occupational Safety and Health Program Plan splits the development and 

implementation of the Hazard Assessment and Control policy into two segments, one 

dealing with completion of the JHA and the other dealing with implementation of the 

operational aspects of this policy. The time frames we cite here apply to the operational 

segment of the policy. The JHA segment is scheduled to be fully implemented by the end of 

calendar year 2004.
Page 17 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

years to complete due to the time needed to develop and fully implement 

this safety policy. Until AOC completes the implementation of this policy 

and subsequent analysis across all jurisdictions, it will not be able to 

develop a comprehensive picture of AOC hazards. Additionally, until AOC 

completes the system-wide process for investigating incidents across all 

jurisdictions, it will not be able to develop a comprehensive picture of AOC 

incidents, including their causes.

Additionally, AOC continues to recognize the importance of a disciplined 

project management process and is taking steps to establish a framework 

for better project management and accountability. For example, as we 

recommended, AOC has developed a process to assign project priorities 

that is based on clearly defined, well-documented, consistently applied, 

and transparent criteria. According to the Office of Design and 

Construction Acting Chief, in February 2003, AOC worked with a 

consultant to develop evaluation criteria to set the prioritization of building 

projects. For prioritization purposes, each project is evaluated in five areas, 

(1) preservation, (2) impact on mission, (3) economic impact, 

(4) safety, and (5) security; and assigned a score, based on a 100-point 

scale, in each area. AOC also developed a matrix to provide criteria and 

guidance on how to evaluate and score the projects in each of the five 

areas. AOC has created a clearly defined, well-documented, and 

transparent process for evaluating and prioritizing projects. While 

determining the priority of projects will always be somewhat subjective, 

AOC has developed a reasonable approach using a matrix to help raters 

score projects in five areas. The matrix provides clear guidance when 

scoring projects in each of the five rating areas. Since the evaluation 

criteria have not yet been used to determine which projects will be 

submitted for funding, it remains to be seen if it will be consistently 

applied. Using this matrix and documenting the factors used in making the 

priority decisions should help AOC support its capital improvement 

program. 

AOC has also made some progress toward adopting a more strategic 

approach to its recycling program. For example, consistent with our 

recommendations, AOC is taking steps to clarify the mission of the 

recycling program and establish program goals as part of its environmental 

program plan. In its March 2003 draft strategic plan, AOC states that it 

plans to develop a long-range environmental program plan that will 

establish program mission, vision, goals, and measures.10 The draft 

strategic plan also states that this environmental program plan would 

include clarifying the mission, goals, and measures of the recycling 
Page 18 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

program—a component of pollution prevention. Although, according to its 

draft performance plan, AOC is a few months behind its schedule, AOC 

officials told us that work has begun on both of these projects—the 

baseline assessment and waste stream analysis—and both projects will be 

substantially completed by the end of 2003. These AOC officials also 

advised us that the results of the baseline assessment and waste stream 

analysis would provide a basis for establishing program priorities and 

measuring progress. The draft performance plan also provides for 

stakeholder participation in this process both before and after the actual 

environmental program planning process occurs, but this has not yet taken 

place. According to AOC’s draft performance plan, stakeholder 

involvement is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of fiscal year 2004, 

after completion of the baseline assessment and waste stream analysis. 

AOC is taking the first steps needed to developing its recycling program 

mission and goals within the broader context of an environmental program 

plan, which is reasonable and consistent with our recommendation.

Concluding 

Observations

We noted in our January 2003 report that organizational transformation 

does not come quickly or easily and the changes under way at AOC would 

require a long-term, concerted effort. We stated that by drawing on the full 

potential of its top leadership and management team, AOC could begin to 

take immediate steps on a number of the concerns described in our 

January 2003 report, although we recognized that AOC would be able to 

implement some of these actions more quickly than others. Although we 

have found that AOC is addressing each of our 35 original 

recommendations either through its planning efforts or actions it has 

initiated; a great deal more needs to be done. Moreover, greater effort will 

have to be made if more timely improvements are to occur. Sustained 

commitment and assertive involvement on behalf of AOC leadership will be 

vital to ensure that it completes the many action plans and reaches its 

milestones during the next several years to achieve its organizational 

transformation.

10According to the AOC draft strategic plan, the environmental program plan, to be 

completed in 2004, will address a wide spectrum of environmental management initiatives 

including environmentally sensitive planning and design, compliance with applicable 

provisions of environmental regulations (such as clean air, clean water, and solid waste 

disposal), and pollution prevention. 
Page 19 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

As AOC works to establish its strategic management and accountability 

framework, improve its management infrastructure, and address longstanding areas of concern, it must continue to demonstrate that progress is 

being made on each of our recommendations to help it sustain the 

momentum needed to accomplish its organizational transformation, 

particularly in improving communications with employees and 

stakeholders and improving its management of information technology. 

Agency Comments We provided a draft of this report on December 17, 2003 to the Architect of 

the Capitol for his review and comment. We received written comments 

from the Architect on January 20, 2004. In response to our draft, the 

Architect generally agreed with our findings, although there are some areas 

of disagreement. Most of the comments were technical changes based on 

information that was either not provided to us during our review or related 

to activities that occurred outside the timeframe of our review. We will 

assess these activities as part of our future semi-annual reviews. Where 

appropriate, we have revised our draft report in response to AOC’s 

comments. 

In his written comments, the Architect disagreed with our characterization 

or assessment of progress in the areas of information technology, worker 

safety, and recycling. Regarding information technology, we reported that 

AOC had taken a number of steps to strengthen investment selection 

processes but had not focused on controlling its existing IT investments, as 

we had recommended. In response, the Architect stated that AOC was now 

controlling existing investments, noting several steps the agency had taken 

to do so. While we do not question whether the agency has taken the steps 

it cited, our position is that those steps either relate to investment selection 

rather than investment control, as defined in our investment framework, or 

the steps were missing necessary details describing how the investment 

control function was being performed. Thus, we believe that AOC still 

needs to focus on investment control.

Regarding worker safety, the AOC commented that GAO did not fully 

capture the progress that has been made in creating an effective worker 

safety and health program. We believe, however, that the information we 

present in the report is an accurate portrayal of the information we 

collected during the period of our review. New information brought forth in 

the AOC’s comments to our draft will be considered during the next semiannual review. 
Page 20 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

Regarding recycling issues, the Architect states that although the 

contaminated materials had resulted in limited revenue generation, the 

recycling contractor separated the contaminated material from the 

recyclable material, and thus waste reduction did occur. We believe that the 

language contained in our January 2003 report about the level of waste 

reduction the AOC had achieved through its recycling efforts is accurate as 

stated.

The Architect’s written comments and our response are reprinted in app. 

VIII.

This report is available at no charge on GAO’s Web site at 

http://www.gao.gov.

If you have further questions about this report, please contact me or Steven 

Lozano at (202) 512-6806 or on mihmj@gao.gov or lozanos@gao.gov. Major 

contributors to this report included Justin Booth, Carole Cimitile, John 

Dale, Terrell Dorn, Maria Edelstein, Elena Epps, Brett Fallavollita, V. Bruce 

Goddard, Carl Higginbotham, David Merrill, Susan Pachikara, Masha 
Page 21 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

Pastuhov-Pastein, John Reilly, William Roach, Mark Trapani, Kris 

Trueblood, and Michael Volpe.

J. Christopher Mihm

Managing Director, Strategic Issues

Jeanette M. Franzel

Director, Financial Management and Assurance

Randolph C. Hite

Director, Information Technology Architecture and Systems Issues
Page 22 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

Appendix I

Strategic Management ApApenednxidexiIs

Our January 2003 report contained 11 recommendations to help the Office 

of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) establish its strategic management 

and accountability framework in the areas of strategic planning and 

organizational alignment, communications, development of congressional 

protocols by involving stakeholders, accountability reporting through 

annual performance planning and reporting, customer satisfaction, 

performance measurement, strategic human capital management, and 

establishing action-oriented implementation goals. This appendix 

describes AOC’s progress to date in addressing each of these 

recommendations. We provide a brief review of findings that led to each 

recommendation, report the actions that AOC has taken to implement the 

recommendation, and provide our analysis of whether AOC’s actions 

address the underlying issues that caused us to make the recommendation 

in our January 2003 report. We also make additional recommendations to 

assist AOC in improving its communications with employees and 

stakeholders. 

Recommendation: Improve strategic planning and organizational 

alignment by involving key congressional and other external 

stakeholders in AOC’s strategic planning efforts and in any 

organizational changes that may result from these efforts.

Successful organizations ensure that their strategic planning fully 

considers the interests and expectations of Congress and other 

stakeholders. In moving forward with its strategic planning efforts, it will 

be critical that AOC fully engage key congressional and other stakeholders 

in further developing and implementing its strategic plan, as well as 

revisions, to provide a strong foundation for any organizational or 

operating changes that may be needed to implement the plan. Key 

congressional and other stakeholder involvement will be especially 

important for AOC to help it ensure that its efforts and resources are 

targeted at the highest priorities. 

Actions Taken by AOC: In March 2003, AOC issued a draft strategic plan1

for fiscal years 2003 through 2007 that contained AOC’s four strategic focus 

areas and corresponding strategic goals described in table 1. AOC also 

issued a draft performance plan2

 outlining the specific actions and 

milestones to reach for achieving the goals and objectives established in 

1

The Architect of the Capitol, Draft Strategic Plan, FY 2003—2007, (Washington, D.C.: 

March 7, 2003).
Appendix I

Strategic Management

Page 23 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

the draft strategic plan. The draft strategic plan is to become operational 

through the annual performance planning process, which translates 

strategic goals into objectives, action plans, milestones, and performance 

measures. AOC has developed an overall approach to managing 

organizational performance that includes strategic planning, annual 

planning and accountability reporting, and assessment of AOC’s 

performance based on meeting agencywide milestones and measures. AOC 

staff plans to meet with stakeholders to discuss its plan. The draft strategic 

plan will be the cornerstone of this process. 

As stated in its draft strategic plan, AOC plans to update the strategic plan 

every two years, annually produce a performance plan and performance 

report, along with action plans supplemented by more detailed functional 

plans developed along the same planning time line (fiscal years 2003-2007). 

In its draft performance plan and based on the strategic focus areas in table 

1, AOC has developed corresponding strategic objectives, action plans, 

milestones, and target dates to help the agency achieve its strategic goals 

and monitor its progress. 

Table 1: AOC’s Strategic Focus Areas and Strategic Goals 

Source: March 2003 AOC Draft Strategic Plan.

In addition, AOC is also involving key congressional stakeholders, as we 

recommended, in the development of its agency draft strategic plan and is 

requesting input on the strategic direction of the agency. According to 

2

The Architect of the Capitol, Draft Performance Plan, Achieving AOC’s Strategic Goals 

and Objectives, (Washington, D.C.: March 7, 2003). 

Strategic Focus Area Strategic Goal

Facilities Management Maintain and preserve the National Treasures entrusted to 

our care by providing timely and quality facilities 

management and related support services.

Project Management Enhance the National Treasures by planning and 

delivering timely and quality projects.

Human Capital Attract, develop and retain diverse, satisfied and highly 

motivated employees with the skills, talents, and 

knowledge necessary to support the agency’s mission.

Organizational Excellence Provide the highest quality services to our clients through 

improved business programs, processes, and systems.
Appendix I

Strategic Management

Page 24 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

AOC’s Deputy Chief of Staff, as of May 2003, the Architect and other senior 

AOC officials have met with 16 stakeholders, such as Members of 

Congress, committee staff, and other legislative agency staff members, and 

have scheduled seven meetings with additional stakeholders to discuss the 

agency’s draft strategic plan to obtain stakeholder input. During these 

meetings, AOC officials reviewed with stakeholders its mission, vision, and 

core values and the four strategic focus areas along with their 

corresponding strategic goals. AOC officials also asked stakeholders to 

comment on: (1) the positive actions they would like to see the agency 

continue or expand, (2) the areas needing improvement or missing entirely, 

(3) ways that AOC could improve its relationship with the stakeholder, and 

(4) criteria used by the stakeholder to judge AOC’s performance. 

The need for a strong and continuing communications strategy, an 

augmented fire safety strategy, and creating a “living” planning and 

improvement approach that becomes part of AOC’s culture, were among 

the important issues raised by congressional stakeholders. AOC planned to 

incorporate the feedback received from stakeholder meetings into its 

agency strategic and performance plans by December 31, 2003.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation by improving its strategic planning process and providing 

more specificity to its strategic goals and objectives, along with developing 

milestone dates and activities to assist the agency in monitoring its 

progress. AOC is also involving key congressional stakeholders in the 

development of its draft agency strategic plan and asking for input on the 

strategic direction of the agency. AOC’s high-level summary of the 

stakeholder reaction it received demonstrates the value of such outreach. 

Building on these efforts, it is important that AOC continue to involve key 

congressional, as well as other stakeholders, in the strategic planning 

process and keep them informed of any operational and organizational 

changes resulting from this planning process. 

Recommendation: Develop comprehensive strategy to improve 

internal and external communications by providing opportunities 

for routine employee input and feedback.

We reported that AOC could (1) strengthen its internal communications by 

developing a communications strategy that would help AOC’s line 

employees understand the connection between what they do on a day-today basis, AOC’s strategic goals, and their individual performance 

expectations, and (2) seek employee feedback and develop goals for 
Appendix I

Strategic Management

Page 25 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

improvement. We also stated that one way of implementing such a 

communication strategy is to conduct routine employee feedback surveys 

and/or focus groups. As part of our January 2003 report, we used focus 

groups to gather employee and supervisor perceptions about working at 

AOC. These focus groups generated a wealth of valuable information to 

AOC on employees’ views on a range of issues including perceptions of 

supervisory favoritism and inconsistency in the way that supervisors 

applied awards, overtime, and leave policies. AOC noted that the use of 

employee focus groups or surveys is one strategy it plans to use to help 

achieve its human capital strategic goal of attracting, developing, and 

retaining diverse, satisfied, and highly motivated employees. 

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC published its draft agencywide Strategic 

Communications Plan, 2003-2007 on August 29, 2003, and planned to 

obtain comments from its key congressional stakeholders to complete this 

plan by December 31, 2003. The draft communications plan recognizes that 

communicating with employees, stakeholders, and other customers is 

critical to achieving AOC’s strategic goals and contains three strategies: (1) 

educating employees on the agency strategic plan and the change process 

AOC will use to achieve its strategic goals, (2) communicating the agency 

strategic plan’s goals and agency accomplishments with congressional and 

external audiences, (3) continuing to expand communications initiatives by 

considering the development of correspondence policies and guidelines, a 

media contact policy, and other directives to assure a clear line of 

communication and a consistent message. AOC has developed strategies to 

communicate with each of its identified customers and stakeholders, 

including AOC employees, congressional and other public officials, and the 

visiting public, dignitaries, other federal agencies, historians, and others. In 

its communications plan, AOC has also noted that it will be important to 

track the effectiveness and impact of communications initiatives by 

conducting employee feedback surveys, employee focus groups, 

stakeholder and client surveys and meetings, tracking word of mouth 

comments, and correspondence. 

According to its draft strategic communications plan, AOC plans to initiate 

several actions to implement this communication strategy. AOC plans to: 

• publish more frequently the agency’s employee newsletter, Shop Talk, 

increasing the number of issues per year from four to six and to feature 

more stories about AOC’s strategic plan,
Appendix I

Strategic Management

Page 26 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

• conduct employee feedback sessions and/or focus groups every two 

years,

• conduct employee site tours of major AOC projects, such as the Capitol 

Visitor Center in fall 2003, and

• explore sending taped video messages or webcasts from the Architect to 

employees. 

Additionally, according to the Deputy Chief of Staff, AOC will follow up on 

the Architect’s commitment, stated in his May 23, 2002 memorandum to 

employees, to conduct employee focus groups, beginning in fiscal year 

2005. According to AOC’s Deputy Chief of Staff, the need to conduct an 

employee focus group was identified as part of AOC’s draft performance 

plan. However, the Deputy Chief of Staff stated that funds to conduct AOC’s 

employee focus groups or surveys were requested after the fiscal year 2004 

budget submission in early December 2002. Therefore, AOC plans to 

conduct its employee focus groups or surveys in fiscal year 2005, with the 

final analysis of these focus groups to be issued in fiscal year 2005. 

AOC also plans to communicate with congressional stakeholders and other 

public officials by continuing to publish its Highlights Report and begin 

producing an annual financial report and a quarterly capital project report 

to congressional leaders and key staff, as well as conducting continuous 

outreach to congressional press secretaries. 

GAO Analysis: AOC is partially addressing our recommendation. The 

development of its draft agencywide strategic communications plan is a 

positive step towards improving and coordinating communication with its 

internal and external audiences. Because people are the drivers of any 

organizational transformation, it is vital to monitor their attitudes.3

However, it is most important for employees to see that top leadership not 

only listens to their concerns, but also takes action and makes appropriate 

adjustments to the transformation in a visible and timely way. However, 

AOC does not plan to hold employee focus groups until fiscal year 2005, 

even though it is important that AOC leadership obtain employee feedback 

on its transformation in a timely manner. While AOC cites budget 

3

U.S. General Accounting Office, Results-Oriented Cultures: Implementation Steps to 

Assist Mergers and Organizational Transformations, GAO-03-669 (Washington, D.C.: July 

2, 2003).
Appendix I

Strategic Management

Page 27 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

limitations as preventing them from conducting employee focus groups or 

surveys earlier than fiscal year 2005, our own experience at GAO when we 

obtained employee views, such as through focus groups, showed us it need 

not be a resource intensive effort. In any case, the benefits often far exceed 

the incremental costs. 

Additional Recommendation: We recommend to the Architect of the 

Capitol that AOC gather and analyze employee feedback from focus groups 

or surveys before fiscal year 2005, as well as communicate how it is taking 

actions to address any identified employee concerns. 

Recommendation: Develop a comprehensive strategy to improve 

internal and external communications by completing the 

development of congressional protocols by involving stakeholders.

In our January 2003 report, we noted that AOC drafted an initial set of 

congressional protocols that would help ensure that AOC deals with its 

congressional customers using clearly defined, consistently applied, and 

transparent policies and procedures. At that time, AOC noted that these 

protocols needed to be made consistent with the approach for AOC’s draft 

strategic plan, finalized, and distributed. We also stated that AOC must 

continually involve its stakeholders in the development of these protocols.

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC completed its draft congressional protocols 

on June 30, 2003 and plans to meet with congressional stakeholders in the 

subsequent few months to discuss these protocols. AOC officials stated 

that it may be challenging to implement these congressional protocols 

because the agency’s clients have become accustomed to receiving 

immediate service and using an informal means of interacting with AOC 

staff when requesting such services. AOC plans to issue its final protocols 

by March 31, 2004. 

GAO Analysis: AOC is partially addressing our recommendation. The 

purpose of agency protocols is to help create a basic understanding 

between AOC and its stakeholders about how AOC’s efforts and resources 

can be targeted at the highest priorities, as well as transparency about how 

decisions and tradeoffs can be made and services deployed given the 

competing demands that confront AOC, and how those demands and 

resources require careful and continuous balancing. AOC needs to discuss 

with its stakeholders how the use of these protocols will help AOC to 

balance immediate customer needs with the achievement of overall agency 

strategic goals. In our January 2003 report, we noted that we had worked 
Appendix I

Strategic Management

Page 28 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

closely with Congress on the development of our own congressional 

protocols, along with careful pilot testing, and then implemented our final 

protocols in 1999. A pilot test would provide AOC and its customers an 

opportunity to test the application of the protocols to the various types of 

customer needs the AOC confronts and to revise those protocols based on 

feedback obtained during the pilot. 

Additional Recommendation: We recommend that AOC conduct a pilot 

of its congressional protocols in one or more of its jurisdictions to 

determine how well its protocols would work in addressing customer 

requests for service, while balancing the need of multiple requests with the 

strategic plan and corresponding project priorities of the agency. 

Recommendation: Develop a comprehensive strategy to improve 

internal and external communications by improving accountability 

reporting through annual performance planning and reporting. 

In our January 2003 report, we noted that AOC could adopt the reporting 

elements of the 1993 Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) to 

strengthen accountability and transparency by annually reporting program 

performance and financial information. This is consistent with the 

approach that we have taken with our own performance planning and 

accountability reporting. Such results-oriented accountability reporting 

would help AOC communicate what it has accomplished, as well as its 

plans for continued progress, to its external stakeholders. 

Actions Taken by AOC: According to AOC’s draft strategic plan, the 

agency plans to produce an annual performance plan at the beginning of 

each fiscal year that outlines the specific actions, associated milestones, 

and performance measures planned for the upcoming fiscal year. In 

addition, as stated in the AOC draft strategic plan, this plan is scheduled to 

be updated every 2 years, and at the end of each fiscal year, AOC will 

publish an annual performance report that outlines progress towards 

meeting agency goals, as well as the individual performance measures. 

AOC also plans to integrate its performance reporting cycle into the budget 

cycle, so that congressional appropriators and other key stakeholders can 

use the information for planning and resource decisions. In addition, AOC 

plans to provide an annual financial report to congressional leaders and 

key staff. 

AOC also plans to monitor its progress against the measures and 

achievements of milestones through monthly assessment meetings with 
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agency senior executives and senior management team. AOC held its first 

assessment meeting on June 23, 2003, to gather its progress on milestones 

to date. According to the draft performance plan, AOC had planned to 

report progress to stakeholders on September 30, 2003. However, 

according to AOC officials, because the draft strategic and performance 

plans had not yet been approved by the Chief Operating Officer (COO), and 

thus the milestone activities were also not approved, a September 30 

meeting was not held with stakeholders. 

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation. According to the AOC draft strategic and performance 

plans, AOC is committed to implementing a strategic management 

framework including issuing a strategic plan every 2 years, developing an 

annual performance plan, and an annual performance report that discusses 

how AOC is progressing on meeting its goals, as well as mid-year status 

briefings. Meeting with congressional and other stakeholders to discuss 

progress on the accomplishment of its milestones periodically is an 

important part of establishing an annual reporting structure, as well as 

communicating effectively with stakeholders to help AOC build its 

management and accountability framework. Once the agency draft 

strategic and performance plans are approved, AOC will be in a position to 

hold its mid-year status briefings as indicated in its annual performance 

plan.

Recommendation: Develop a comprehensive strategy to improve 

internal and communications by continuing to regularly measure 

customer satisfaction AOC-wide.

In our January 2003 report, we reported that in June 2002, AOC made a 

concerted effort to gather the views of some of its clients through a 

building services customer satisfaction survey for the Senate, House 

Capitol building, and Library of Congress and planned to continue 

conducting this survey annually. The purpose of the survey was to obtain 

valuable feedback from AOC customers about the services received. We 

recommended that AOC’s continuing efforts to routinely measure customer 

satisfaction AOC-wide with both its congressional customers as well as 

other customers, such as visitors to the Capitol Hill complex, would help 

AOC identify its service quality strengths, performance gaps, and 

improvement opportunities.

Actions Taken by AOC: According to documents we reviewed, as a result 

of conducting the June 2002 building services customer survey, AOC 
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reported back to each jurisdiction in March 2003 the actions it had taken to 

improve building services. In June 2003, AOC administered its second 

building services customer satisfaction survey for the Senate, House, 

Capitol building, and Library of Congress jurisdictions. According to its 

draft performance plan and letters accompanying the second customer 

satisfaction survey, AOC expected to report the final results of this second 

building services customer satisfaction survey in December 31, 2003. The 

Architect also stated in these letters that AOC will use the results of these 

customer satisfaction surveys to identify service improvement initiatives 

and priorities for action that will be incorporated into the AOC business 

plan, as well as monitor the quality of AOC services and the progress of 

improvement initiatives. According to the Deputy Chief of Staff, AOC is 

planning to conduct its customer survey annually.

GAO Analysis: AOC has fulfilled our recommendation because it has 

taken actions based on the 2002 customer satisfaction survey, continues to 

measure customer satisfaction in 2003, and plans to conduct an annual 

customer survey.

Recommendation: Strengthen performance measurement and 

strategic human capital management by developing annual goals 

and measuring performance.

Measuring performance enables an organization to track its progress in 

achieving its goals, gives managers crucial information on which to guide 

their organizational and management decisions, creates powerful 

incentives to influence organizational and individual behavior, and helps to 

assure accountability. Developing annual performance goals that provide a 

connection between the long-term strategic goals in the strategic plan and 

the day-to-day activities of managers and staff members will help AOC 

establish a management and accountability framework and reporting 

system that is needed for organizational transformation. 

Actions Taken by AOC: According to its draft strategic plan, AOC’s 

performance measurement approach is to adopt specific strategies and 

practices to move towards business decision making that is supported by 

performance data, using both qualitative and quantitative performance 

measures to demonstrate progress towards achievement of its strategic 

goals and objectives. AOC has identified a number of high-level agencywide 

performance measures to monitor and evaluate the success of its work 

corresponding to its four strategic focus areas: facilities management, 

project management, human capital, and organizational excellence. AOC 
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plans to adopt specific strategies and practices to move towards decisionmaking that is supported by performance data, using both qualitative and 

quantitative performance measures to demonstrate progress towards its 

strategic goals and objectives. According to AOC’s draft strategic plan, the 

performance measures to be developed will serve as the basis for the 

annual performance goals that connect its strategic goals to the day-to-day 

work of AOC employees. The high-level agencywide measurement areas 

used to monitor AOC’s success, and for which AOC leaders will be held 

accountable, have been identified as follows: client satisfaction, employee 

satisfaction, projects on-time, projects on-budget, project quality, facility 

maintenance, asset preservation, employee safety, clean audit, recycling, 

and budget execution. According to the AOC draft strategic plan, the 

targets will establish standards for desired performance on each measure. 

However, the specific metrics and the methodology to obtain data for each 

of these areas, as well as the targets for each measure, have not yet been 

developed. In July 2003, AOC hired a management analyst to help create 

more specific program-level measures, corresponding to agency-level 

performance measures described previously, that will form the basis of an 

agencywide performance measurement system. 

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation. AOC has begun to institutionalize important elements of 

its strategic management and accountability framework by developing 

annual goals and issuing its strategic and performance plans. As such, AOC 

has taken its first steps towards identifying high-level agencywide 

measures and has committed to creating a more specific performance 

measurement system to help the agency track its own progress in meeting 

its strategic goals and keeping key stakeholders informed. The creation of a 

performance measurement system will be essential to helping AOC track 

and report on its agencywide performance measures. Our analyses in 

Appendixes V, VI, and VII that assess AOC’s key program issues, worker 

safety, project management, and recycling cite the lack of specific 

performance measures as continuing critical issues for AOC to address. 

Recommendation: Strengthen performance measurement and 

strategic human capital management by creating a line of sight by 

linking AOC’s senior executive and employee performance 

management systems to mission-critical goals.

Effective performance management systems can be strategic tools for 

organizations to drive internal change and achieve external results. These 

systems align individual performance expectations with organizational 
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goals.4 High performing organizations align performance expectations of 

top leadership with goals and then cascade those expectations down to 

lower levels. In our January 2003 report, we noted that AOC had instructed 

its senior executives to incorporate the agency’s draft strategic or missioncritical goals and responsibilities into their performance requirements, 

which describe how an individual’s work contributes to organizational 

goals and results. We recommended that AOC align its employee 

performance management system, Performance Communication 

Evaluation System (PCES), with its senior executive performance 

management system, Performance Review Process (PRP), to strengthen 

individual accountability for organizational goals. 

Actions Taken by AOC: As of July 1, 2003, AOC reported that it 

completed its PRP. Each senior executive is to be held accountable for the 

following four performance requirements: leadership and management, 

customer satisfaction, safety, and human capital management. Senior 

executives are to identify the critical actions that pertain to these 

performance requirements and support the achievement of specific 

milestones as outlined in the agency’s draft performance plan.

AOC’s director of the AOC Human Resources Management Division 

(HRMD) told us that when the recently appointed COO completes and 

reviews the strategic plan and the agency’s strategic goals, AOC will be able 

to incorporate these strategic goals into PRP and subsequently link these 

goals into PCES. This is to be completed by January 2005. According to the 

HRMD director, to align PCES with PRP, AOC will need to coordinate its 

multiple rating cycles into one cycle. The Senior Policy Committee met on 

June 24, 2003, to discuss coordinating the performance rating cycles and 

agreed to implement one standard performance rating cycle beginning in 

January 2005 from January 1 to December 31 of each year. 

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation. AOC is working to create the line of sight needed to link 

senior executive performance with agency strategic goals by identifying 

performance requirements for senior executives that are intended to 

contribute to the achievement of the agency’s draft strategic plan. While 

consolidating the jurisdictional employee performance management cycles 

4

U.S. General Accounting Office, Results-Oriented Cultures: Creating a Clear Linkage 

between Individual Performance and Organizational Success, GAO-03-488 (Washington, 

D.C.: Mar. 14, 2003).
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would be helpful in the administration of performance reviews at AOC, 

AOC need not wait for this consolidation to make important progress in 

integrating its strategic goals into PCES. As AOC’s performance 

management effort moves forward, it will be important that AOC adopt 

additional performance management practices that leading organizations 

have used to enhance performance and ensure accountability.5

Recommendation: Strengthen performance measurement and 

strategic human capital management by establishing agencywide 

core and technical competencies and holding employees 

accountable for these competencies as a part of the performance 

management system.

In our January 2003 report, we recommended that AOC consider 

developing core and technical competencies as the basis for its 

performance management systems. Agencywide core and technical 

competencies can serve as guidance for employees as they strive to meet 

organizational expectations. The core competencies should be derived 

from AOC’s strategic plan and workforce planning efforts and reflect AOC’s 

core values. All employees should be held accountable for achieving core 

competencies as AOC moves to transform its culture. We also suggested 

that as AOC develops a cadre of managerial and professional employees, 

the development of specific technical competencies can assist the agency 

in creating and developing a successful leadership and managerial team. 

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC’s HRMD director told us that AOC is 

creating a leadership development program that identifies competencies 

for senior executives and agency managers. In addition, this draft 

leadership program will identify training to match those competencies and 

provide alternative training options to meet the program requirements. 

According to the HRMD director, in September 2003, this draft leadership 

development program was submitted for management consideration by the 

Senior Policy Committee and is still pending approval. The Director also 

told us that the identification of competencies for all employees in a 

defined framework would begin after the Office of Workforce Planning and 

Management (WFPM) is established.6

 AOC is also revising existing 

competencies for shop supervisors. According to the HRMD director, she 

will be working with the heads of the Office of Design and Construction 

5

See U.S. GAO-03-488.
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and the Procurement Division in fall 2003 to identify technical 

competencies for project managers and contracting officers, respectively.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation. AOC is taking the initial steps towards establishing 

competencies for its senior managers and also developing the training 

opportunities to help its managers achieve those competencies. Given the 

designated organizational purpose of WFPM, it is appropriate that AOC 

plans to use this office to help assess the competencies needed for 

employees, as we noted in our January 2003 report that competencies can 

help form the basis for an organization’s selection, promotion, training, 

performance management, and succession planning initiatives—all 

traditional functions of a strategic workforce planning approach. We have 

found that successful organizations include human capital professionals 

acting together with agency leaders and line managers to develop strategic 

and program plans to accomplish agency goals.7

 Through this joint action, 

agency and human capital leaders and their staffs share accountability for 

successfully integrating strategic human capital approaches into the 

planning and decision-making of the agency. As WFPM is established, it is 

important that AOC adopt such an approach. 

AOC is also making progress towards the development of technical 

competencies by working with its respective offices in developing 

competencies for its project managers and contracting officers. However, it 

is important that AOC continue the development of both its technical and 

core competencies for all employees and ensure that these competencies 

are tied to the agency’s strategic plan. Part of the typical competency 

development process is the validation phase, which allows employees an 

opportunity to validate the accuracy of the defined competencies. This 

validation process is critical to capturing the competencies accurately and 

also gaining employee ownership and acceptance of the competencies for 

incorporation into the performance management system. 

6

According to AOC, the purpose of the Office of Workforce Planning and Management is to 

oversee and conduct such organizationwide functions as workforce planning and analysis, 

succession planning, organizational staffing, staff resource allocation, and to review 

organizational structure and alignment of functions. 

7

U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: Selected Agency Actions to Integrate 

Human Capital Approaches to Attain Mission Results, GAO-03-446 (Washington, D.C.: 

Apr. 11, 2003).
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Recommendation: Strengthen performance measurement and 

strategic human capital management by developing the capacity to 

collect and analyze workforce data.

Collecting and analyzing data are fundamental building blocks for 

measuring the effectiveness of human capital approaches in support of the 

mission and goals of an agency. The ability to collect and analyze data will 

greatly enhance AOC’s ability to acquire, develop, and retain talent, while 

allowing it to effectively plan for the needs of its workforce. AOC needs to 

develop a fact-based, comprehensive approach to the collection and 

analysis of accurate and reliable information across a range of human 

capital activities. 

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC has created WFPM as described above, but 

has not yet established the ability to collect and analyze workforce data. 

According to the HRMD director, AOC does not plan to purchase any 

system until WFPM is staffed, although AOC has been reviewing possible 

vendor systems designed to help it collect workforce data. 

GAO Analysis: AOC’s plans are addressing our recommendations. 

However, until the office is established and additional actions are 

undertaken, we cannot fully assess its actions in response to this 

recommendation. Moreover, AOC does not need to wait until it contracts 

with a vendor to begin to identify and establish reliable data sources and 

collection methods that will help to support its workforce planning and 

management process. Early development of reliable data provides a 

baseline that an agency can use to identify current workforce problems. 

Regular updating of the data enables agencies to plan for improvements, 

manage changes in the programs and workforce, and track the effects of 

changes on achieving program goals. To ensure a data-driven, performanceoriented approach to human capital management, senior agency officials, 

including both program leaders and human capital leaders, can provide 

oversight and accountability for the integration and alignment of the 

agencies’ human capital approaches. As shown in figure 1, federal agencies 

collect and analyze a variety of information to support their specific 

workforce planning efforts.
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Figure 1: Examples of Workforce Data That Are Collected and Analyzed by Other 

Federal Agencies

Recommendation: Strengthen performance measurement and 

strategic human capital management by identifying current and 

future workforce needs and developing strategies to fill gaps.

AOC can benefit from strategically identifying its current and future 

workforce needs and then creating strategies to fill any gaps. Workforce 

planning efforts linked to strategic program goals and objectives can help 

the organization better identify needs such as ensuring a diverse labor 

force, succession planning for scarce skill sets, and other competencies 

needed in the workforce. 

Actions Taken by AOC: In our January 2003 report, we stated that AOC 

recognized the need to strategically plan for its workforce and had 

requested funding for four positions in its fiscal year 2003 budget to create 

an organization and workforce management team reporting to the Deputy 

Chief of Staff within the Office of the Architect. According to AOC officials, 

AOC hired the Director of WFPM and filled one staff position on October 7, 

2003 and is recruiting for the remaining workforce planning and 

management analyst positions. The Deputy Chief of Staff told us that the 

• Actual and projected attrition rates (including retirements) showing how many people 

have left the agency in the past and the estimated number who will leave in the future

• Exit surveys or interviews with departing employees to better understand the reasons 

that people leave

• Knowledge, skills, and experiences of current workforce

• Size and shape of the workforce including information such as, the distribution of 

employees by pay level and ratio of managers to employees 

• Dispersal of performance appraisal ratings, such as the mean, mode, and standard 

deviation of scores

• Number of performance awards and their distribution among divisions and offices

• Total human capital cost in dollars and as a percentage of the total operating budget

• Average period required to fill vacancies, and trends over time

• Acceptance rates among job candidates to whom positions are offered

• Costs of promotion, grade increase, and within-grade increases

Source: Compiled from previous GAO reports.
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COO would work collaboratively with WFPM to focus on the assessment of 

AOC’s skill mix, resource needs, and succession planning for the agency. 

GAO Analysis: AOC’s plans are addressing our recommendations, but 

until the office is established and additional actions are undertaken, we 

cannot fully assess its action in response to this recommendation. It is 

encouraging that AOC is working to establish this office that will allow the 

agency to conduct workforce planning and analysis. As AOC’s workforce 

planning efforts move forward, AOC will naturally need to develop an 

approach that best meets its organizational needs. Our work looking at 

strategic workforce planning suggests that there are certain principles that 

an organization should address irrespective of the context in which 

planning is done. We have issued several reports that discuss the following 

common core principles of workforce planning.8

• Involve top management, employees, and other stakeholders in 

developing, communicating, and implementing the strategic workforce 

plan, 

• Determine the critical skills and competencies that will be needed to 

achieve future programmatic results,

• Develop strategies tailored to address gaps in number, deployment, and 

alignment of human capital approaches that enable and sustain the 

contributions of all critical skills and competencies,

• Build the capability needed to address administrative, educational, and 

other requirements important to support workforce strategies, and

• Monitor and evaluate the agency’s progress towards its human capital 

goals and the contribution that human capital results have made 

towards achieving programmatic goals.

Recommendation: Establish action-oriented implementation goals 

over the long term and a time line with milestone dates to track the 

8

See U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: Key Principles for Effective 

Strategic Workforce Planning, GAO-04-39, (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 11, 2003); Government 

Printing Office: Advancing GPO’s Transformation Effort through Strategic Human 

Capital Management, GAO-04-85 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 20, 2003); Tax Administration: 

Workforce Planning Needs Further Development for IRS’s Taxpayer Education and 

Communication Unit, GAO-03-711 (Washington, D.C.: May 30, 2003).
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organization’s progress towards achieving those implementation 

goals

Our January 2003 report stated that AOC faces many challenges as it 

transforms to become a more results-oriented, matrixed, client-focused, 

and proactive organization. Making such fundamental changes in AOC’s 

culture will require a long-term, concerted effort. We also noted that our 

recommendations covered a broad landscape of issues confronting AOC, 

such as strategic planning, communications, strategic human capital, 

financial management, information technology, as well as long-standing 

issues in worker safety, project management, and recycling. Establishing a 

strategic management and accountability framework and developing 

management infrastructure and internal controls would help AOC achieve 

its organizational transformation. Thus, it was important to craft a 

comprehensive and integrated approach addressing AOC’s challenges and 

setting appropriate priorities, even though by necessity it would have to be 

phased in over time. 

Therefore, we recommended that it was essential AOC work with key 

congressional and other stakeholders to establish action-oriented, 

implementation goals over the long term, and a time line with milestone 

dates to track the organization’s progress towards achieving those 

implementation goals. We also suggested to Congress that it consider ways 

in which to elevate, integrate, and institutionalize accountability for 

addressing management issues and leading organizational transformation 

at AOC; one option was to create a statutory COO or similar position for 

AOC to improve its executive decision-making capacity and accountability. 

Actions Taken by AOC: In the legislation that mandated we undertake a 

general management review of the AOC, Congress also required that AOC 

respond to our review by preparing a management improvement plan 

addressing our study.9

 To satisfy this congressional requirement to create a 

management improvement plan addressing our management review 

recommendations and our specific recommendation that AOC create 

action-oriented implementation goals and a time line with milestone dates 

to track AOC’s progress towards achieving its goals, AOC issued its draft 

performance plan in March 2003 for fiscal years 2003-2007 with a particular 

emphasis on fiscal years 2003-2004. This draft performance plan includes 

9

See Section 129(d) of Pub. L. No. 107-68, Nov. 12, 2001 and corresponding reports, Sen. Rep. 

No. 107-37 at 28,29 (2001) and H.R. Conf. Rep No. 107-148 at 72 (2001).
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specific action plans developed along the same planning time line as the 

AOC draft strategic plan, as well as the tactical-level actions, performance 

targets, and milestone dates necessary to carry out agency-level strategies 

to achieve its mission-critical goals. In the 2003 Legislative Branch 

Appropriations Act,10 Congress created the COO position at AOC, and the 

Architect of the Capitol appointed its first COO, who began on July 28, 

2003. 

GAO Analysis: AOC has fulfilled our recommendation by issuing its draft 

performance plan, which establishes action-oriented implementation goals 

over the long term and a time line with milestone dates to track the 

organization’s progress towards achieving those implementation goals. The 

implementation of these two recommendations in tandem (1) the creation 

of AOC’s management improvement plan and (2) the appointment of the 

COO position to help AOC elevate, integrate, and institutionalize 

accountability for addressing management issues and leading its 

transformation, allow AOC to address issues across the agency’s programs 

and influence performance in all areas critical to achieving its mission. 

Moving forward, it is critical that AOC complete its draft performance plan 

and then use it as a basis for managing the agency, provide progress reports 

to Congress, and assure AOC’s accountability.

10Section 1203 of Division H, Title I, Pub. L. No. 108-7, Feb. 20, 2003, (The Consolidated 

Appropriations Resolution, 2003).
Page 40 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

Appendix II

Strategic Human Capital Management ApendxiI

We made three recommendations in our January 2003 report to help the 

Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) improve its management 

infrastructure and internal controls by strengthening its human capital 

policies, procedures, and processes by developing a consistent agencywide 

leave policy, comprehensively collecting and analyzing data from its 

employee relations offices, and establishing a direct reporting relationship 

between the Ombudsperson and the Architect. This appendix describes 

AOC’s progress to date in addressing each of these recommendations. We 

provide a brief review of why we made each recommendation, report the 

actions that AOC has taken to implement the recommendation, and provide 

our analysis of whether AOC’s actions address the underlying issues that 

caused us to make the recommendation in our January 2003 report. 

Recommendation: Strengthen AOC’s human capital policies, 

procedures, and processes by continuing to develop and implement 

agencywide human capital policies and procedures and holding 

management and employees accountable for following these 

policies and procedures.

Effective organizations establish clear and consistent human capital 

policies with clearly stated expectations for both employees and 

supervisors and ensure that there is accountability for following these 

procedures accordingly. As mentioned, we conducted focus groups as part 

of our management review and found that a majority of the focus group 

participants perceived that AOC’s supervisors applied awards, overtime, 

and leave policies inconsistently and suspected supervisory favoritism in 

making these decisions. Some focus group participants stated that 

supervisors determined on their own when an employee was entitled to 

sick or annual leave and inconsistently decided when some employees 

could take off time from work. Further, a majority of focus group 

participants felt that the Architect’s Awards Program was not applied 

consistently across jurisdictions and shifts for all employees.

Actions Taken by AOC: Since our January 2003 report, AOC has drafted 

an agencywide absence and leave policy to “assure consistent treatment of 

employees through the establishment of uniform procedures for the 

administration of leave.”1

 This policy covers most types of employee leave, 

such as annual, sick, family and medical, and absence without pay. In 

September 2003, AOC submitted its draft leave policy to the Architect for 

1

See AOC Human Resources Manual, Order 630-1, Absence and Leave, July 1, 2003.
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his review and approval. AOC has submitted its policy and procedures for 

administering various pay flexibilities, such as recruitment bonuses and 

retention allowances, superior qualification appointments, and preemployment travel expense reimbursements to the AOC Office of 

Employment Counsel for review. On June 15, 2003, AOC issued its final 

guidelines to supervisors and employees for determining when employees 

are eligible to receive Sunday premium pay.2

In our January 2003 report, we reported that, in March 2002, AOC had 

issued a policy containing responsibilities and procedures for 

administrating its employee rewards and recognition program. The Human 

Resources Management Division (HRMD) director told us that managers 

and supervisors are held accountable for the consistent application of the 

human capital policies and procedures, such as granting leave, overtime, 

and employee awards in the Performance Communication Evaluation 

System (PCES) within the performance requirement of Supervision and 

Management. 

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation of developing and implementing agencywide human 

capital policies and procedures by issuing an absence and leave policy, 

providing guidelines to its workforce for determining eligibility for Sunday 

premium pay, and completing its policy and procedures for administering 

pay flexibilities. AOC must continue to hold management and employees 

accountable for following these policies and procedures through the 

performance requirements in its performance management systems. As 

part of its management and oversight responsibilities of human capital 

policies, it is important that AOC senior management and HRMD 

continually monitor whether supervisors and managers are fairly 

administering the policies concerning leave, rewards, and recognition. AOC 

could use information gathered during employee focus groups, employee 

satisfaction surveys, and informal feedback from employees to monitor 

employee views on the administration of these policies.

Recommendation: Strengthen AOC’s human capital policies, 

procedures, and processes by assessing ways in which AOC 

management could better gather and analyze data from the various 

2

See Pay Under the Architect’s Wage System, Chapter 532, “Determining Eligibility for 

Sunday Premium Pay,” June 15, 2003.
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employee relations offices and employee advisory council while 

maintaining employee confidentiality.

AOC has a number of offices, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity 

and Conciliation Program Office, the Office of the Ombudsperson, as well 

as an employee group, the Employee Advisory Council (EAC) formerly 

known as the Architect’s Work Team, whose function is to interact directly 

with employees and can gather information regarding employee concerns. 

In addition to the roles that these offices fill in resolving the concerns of 

individual employees, each of these offices can also be a valuable source 

for identifying general issues of agencywide employee concerns. During 

our management review, we found that it was not clear whether there was 

a coordinated approach to track patterns of agencywide employee 

relations issues among these offices and EAC. If this information could be 

collected and analyzed by AOC’s senior managers, it could be useful for 

alerting management to issues affecting employee relations. We also noted 

that an agencywide tracking method needed to be balanced to maintain 

employee confidentiality. 

Actions Taken by AOC: According to the Deputy Chief of Staff and 

HRMD director, there is a new objective in the AOC Human Capital Plan,

issued in December 2003 that allows for additional input into the policy 

development review process from employee groups, such as EAC. In 

addition, the HRMD director told us that in August and October 2003 

representatives from the Offices of Labor Relations, Equal Employment 

Opportunity and Conciliation Program, Human Resources, and the Office 

of Employment Counsel met to discuss how to best shape information on 

possible trends in employee relations issues among employees. According 

to the HRMD director, this discussion centered on how to best share 

information among these offices and what will be done with the 

information when a trend is noted. AOC plans to establish a defined 

process for a trial period on how best to share and examine employee 

relations data and then reevaluate this process.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation by holding meetings with the program offices that can 

provide employee relations data and assessments of employee concerns at 

the agency and by including an objective in its Human Capital Plan to 

solicit additional feedback from its EAC. It is important that AOC continue 

holding these meetings to discuss ways in which it can systematically 

gather and analyze information about general employee concerns, while 
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maintaining employee confidentiality, and regularly bring these concerns to 

the attention of senior management.

Recommendation: Establish a direct reporting relationship between 

the Ombudsperson and the Architect consistent with professional 

standards.

Our January 2003 report assessed the ombudsperson position at AOC to 

determine whether it adhered to the standards of practice for 

ombudspersons established by professional organizations, including 

embracing the core principles of independence, neutrality, and 

confidentiality. We found that the AOC Ombudsperson reported to the 

Administrative Assistant to the Architect of the Capitol or his or her 

authorized designate, but not directly to the Architect. The Ombudsman 

Association Standards of Practice define independence as functioning 

independently of line management with the ombudsman reporting to the 

highest authority in an organization. Furthermore, the American Bar 

Association’s ombudsman standards for independence state that the 

ombudsman’s office must be and appear to be free from interference in 

order to be credible and effective.3

 We recommended that if the AOC 

Ombudsperson were to directly report to the Architect and not through 

another senior manager, the core principle of independence would be 

strengthened.

Actions Taken by AOC: The Deputy Chief of Staff told us that in the 

future the Ombudsperson and Architect would have a direct reporting 

relationship and plan to meet directly to discuss the Ombudsperson’s 

monthly status reports, though these meetings have not yet taken place. He 

also told us in November 2003 that the current contract with the AOC 

Ombudsperson expired September 30, 2003, and AOC is hiring another 

contractor for the position and expects to fill the position in the next few 

months. AOC officials also stated that the Architect may choose to share 

the Ombudsperson’s monthly report findings with the Chief Operating 

Officer and other selected senior managers in AOC, such as the Chief of 

Staff or her Deputy, as a followup to the Ombudsperson’s report. 

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation to adhere to the standard of independence for the office 

3

U.S. General Accounting Office, Human Capital: The Role of Ombudsmen in Dispute 

Resolution, GAO-01-466 (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 13, 2001).
Appendix II

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Page 44 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

of an ombudsman, though these meetings have not yet taken place. We 

recommended that AOC establish a direct reporting relationship between 

the Ombudsperson and the Architect to be consistent with professional 

standards, which suggests that the Ombudsperson report directly with the 

highest authority in the agency, in this case the Architect. It is appropriate 

for the Architect to also include the Chief Operating Officer, as another one 

of the highest authorities in the agency, during these monthly status 

meetings. According to the Ombudsman Association’s model job 

description under reporting guidelines for an organizational ombudsman, 

“the ombudsman function is independent of and separate from the human 

resource and other existing administrative structures... and typically 

reports directly to the chief executive officer or chief operating officer, 

with access to the board of directors, if applicable.” It is also appropriate 

for the Architect to share the Ombudsperson’s report with selected senior 

managers in the organization. According to Ombudsman Association 

standards, the ombudsman “may prepare periodic reports, either verbally 

or in writing, on organizational trends and activities based on anonymous 

aggregate data. These reports may also identify patterns or problem areas 

in the organization’s policies and practices and may recommend revisions 

or improvements, and may assess the climate of the organization and can 

be communicated in a general way to the organization’s senior 

management.”
Page 45 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

Appendix III

Financial Management ApendxiI

In our January 2003 report, we made one recommendation to help the 

Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) continue to improve its 

financial management by institutionalizing sound financial management 

practices. This appendix describes AOC’s progress to date in addressing 

our recommendation. We provide a brief review of why we made this 

recommendation, report the actions that AOC has taken to implement the 

recommendation, and provide our analysis of whether AOC’s actions 

address the underlying issues that caused us to make the recommendation 

in our January 2003 report. 

Recommendation: Continue to improve AOC’s approach to financial 

management by developing strategies to institutionalize financial 

management practices that will support budgeting, financial, and 

program management at AOC.

In our January 2003 report, we noted that AOC’s Chief Financial Officer 

(CFO) had adopted our executive guide on world-class financial 

management as a road map for improving financial management. 

According to the CFO, the financial management component of AOC’s 

March 2003 draft performance plan presents AOC’s proposed actions, in 

response to our January 2003 recommendation, to institutionalize financial 

management best practices that support the effective delivery of programs 

and services. Specifically, the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) 

has established three broad-based action plans to respond to this 

recommendation:

• build a foundation of financial control and accountability,

• assess the financial management organization’s current role in meeting 

mission objectives and organize financial management to add value, and

• improve forward-looking analysis, train managers in understanding how 

to use financial information, and improve the partnership between 

financial management and operations.

Build a foundation of financial control and accountability.

A foundation of financial control and accountability provides a system of 

checks and balances and needed assurances that transactions are 

appropriately recorded and reported, assets are protected, established 

policies and procedures are followed, and resources are used economically 

and efficiently for the purposes intended. In this regard, this action plan 
Appendix III

Financial Management

Page 46 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

involves leveraging audit resources and the financial statement audit 

process to issue auditable financial statements, developing an approach for 

assessing and improving internal controls, and establishing inventory 

management and control procedures to ensure accurate and useful 

information. The plan also includes developing accurate operating and 

capital budget requests and related plans to properly evaluate the 

execution of programs, as well as processes and procedures needed to 

prepare financial and performance reports for major programs and 

business segments.

Actions Taken by AOC: OCFO reports that planning for the issuance of 

auditable financial statements has been completed, and implementation is 

underway to issue an audited balance sheet for fiscal year 2003 and a 

complete set of audited financial statements for subsequent fiscal years. 

AOC has established an audit committee to oversee the audits and has 

hired an external auditor to perform the initial audit and report on related 

internal control issues. In addition, OCFO reports that values have been 

established for property, plant, and equipment, and that reconciliation 

procedures have been developed for all major accounts. Various additional 

actions are planned by OCFO to support the fiscal year 2003 audit of the 

balance sheet, including an automated close of the accounting records and 

automated extraction of the financial statements. Current completion dates 

are mid-fiscal year 2004 for issuance of the fiscal year 2003 financial 

statements (including an audited balance sheet) and mid-fiscal year 2006 to 

receive an unqualified audit opinion on the complete set of fiscal year 2005 

financial statements.

About internal controls, OCFO reports that policies and procedures have 

been developed for all major activities of the Accounting and Budget 

Division, including guidance on funds control administration. Key controls 

will be reviewed as part of the fiscal year 2003 financial statement audit. 

AOC plans to respond to the auditor’s report on internal controls and issue 

a policy statement on internal controls by September 30, 2004.

Concerning inventory management and control procedures, OCFO reports 

that AOC has implemented an inventory accounting policy, developed 

interim policies and procedures for inventory management and control, 

and received bids for the purchase of a new inventory control system. AOC 

plans to implement its new inventory system during fiscal year 2004.

About budgeting, OCFO reports that AOC has implemented operating and 

capital budget processes for the development of the fiscal year 2005 budget 
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Page 47 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

estimates submission to Congress. These processes include (1) a new 

capital planning program that standardizes and prioritizes capital project 

submissions, (2) a budget screening process that incorporates comparisons 

of prior-year spending trends for recurring programs, (3) a stakeholder 

review that examines all budgets to the lowest (suballotment) level, and (4) 

final review and approval by the Architect. AOC’s current planned date for 

having a budget approved as submitted is September 30, 2007.

With regard to financial reports for major programs and business segments, 

OCFO reports that coding needed to facilitate the preparation of 

jurisdiction financial reports has been completed. AOC plans to generate 

automated financial reports for fiscal year 2003 and quarterly financial 

reports starting in fiscal year 2004. Actions needed to develop and issue 

annual performance reports for major programs and business segments, 

however, are not as far along. OCFO reports that planning is expected to 

begin in mid-fiscal year 2004, once AOC’s performance plan is finalized. 

Currently, OCFO projects that it will issue the initial annual performance 

report in fiscal year 2007. 

Assess the financial management organization’s current role in meeting 

mission objectives and organize financial management to add value.

A financial management organization that meets its mission objectives and 

adds value does so by providing products and services that directly support 

strategic decision making and improving overall performance. To build 

such an organization, this action plan calls for revising OCFO’s internal 

operating plan, developing a long-term workforce strategy to ensure that 

financial managers have necessary data analysis skills, and benchmarking 

OCFO processes against industry leaders and other federal agencies to 

facilitate reengineering of costly, inefficient processes.

Actions Taken by AOC: According to OCFO, planning has begun on the 

revision of the OCFO internal operating plan, which is currently scheduled 

for completion by the end of fiscal year 2004. By mid-fiscal year 2004, 

OCFO plans to begin developing long-term workforce strategies to ensure 

that AOC financial managers have appropriate financial analysis skills and 

to start reviewing and benchmarking financial transactions and processes 

as a basis for streamlining and reengineering financial processes. AOC 

plans to complete both of these action items by the end of fiscal year 2005. 

OCFO plans to issue a report on benchmarking efforts that will be used, 

beginning in fiscal year 2006, to eliminate, streamline, and reengineer 
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Page 48 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

costly and inefficient financial processes. Financial process changes are 

expected to be ongoing at the end of fiscal year 2007, the cut-off date for 

the 5-year performance plan. 

Improve forward-looking analysis, train managers in understanding 

how to use financial information, and improve the partnership between 

financial management and operations.

Equipping managers with the skills and capabilities needed to effectively 

use financial information in prospective analysis improves the opportunity 

for meaningful partnerships between financial management and 

operations. To this end, this action plan seeks to establish a link between 

financial management and operations that helps to provide meaningful 

information for managing and measuring cost and performance. 

Specifically, this plan involves 

• integrating AOC’s financial and operating systems to facilitate annual 

program reviews,

• training managers to use financial information to improve operational 

planning and decision-making,

• implementing a cost accounting system for financial reporting,

• placing financial managers in jurisdictions,

• stabilizing financial management system upgrades, and 

• developing a long-term operating plan. 

Actions Taken by AOC: OCFO reports that planning has begun to

(1) integrate financial and operating systems to equip decision-makers with 

relevant information and tools to perform ad hoc analysis, (2) establish 

expectations and procedures for conducting annual program reviews, 

(3) train managers to use financial information to improve operational 

planning and decision-making, and (4) acquire and install a cost accounting 

system for financial reporting.

Once financial and operating systems are integrated and expectations and 

procedures for the annual reviews are established, OCFO will be able to 

conduct its first annual program review. The review is currently planned 

for fiscal year 2004; however, due to potential key system integration 
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Page 49 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

issues, OCFO is currently considering rescheduling the review for fiscal 

year 2006.

OCFO reports that many financial and procurement managers in the 

jurisdictions and central office have been trained in appropriations law, 

with further appropriations law training planned as an ongoing program. 

Additionally, OCFO anticipates that planning for other training can begin in 

mid-fiscal year 2004, with courses conducted later in the fiscal year. Letters 

of authority to properly trained managers authorizing them to conduct 

various financial activities are currently scheduled for distribution by the 

end of fiscal year 2004. 

AOC acquisition and installation of a cost accounting system is currently 

scheduled for September 30, 2005; however, according to OCFO, this step 

needs to be moved to fiscal year 2006 because AOC has requested fiscal 

year 2005 funding for determining how it should perform cost allocation, 

and for support in system set-up and testing. 

OCFO reports that planning has been completed on efforts to establish 

financial managers in jurisdictions, and the hiring of the first group of these 

managers is underway with completion expected by the end of fiscal year 

2006.

With regard to financial management systems, OCFO reports that AOC 

continues to make progress in implementing major phases of its financial

management system implementation plan, with the contracting module and 

inventory system—the final two phases—planned for production 

operations in October 2004. AOC’s upgrade of the financial management 

system is also scheduled for October 2004, with future upgrades of major 

releases scheduled annually.

While plans are underway to revise OCFO’s existing internal operating 

plan, as discussed previously, efforts have not yet begun to develop and 

issue a long-term operating plan. Completion of the long-term plan is 

currently scheduled for September 30, 2007. 

GAO Analysis: Since January 2003, AOC has made progress in addressing 

our recommendation. It has developed and begun to implement three 

broad-based action plans that are intended to accomplish AOC’s goal of 

institutionalizing financial management best practices that support the 

effective delivery of programs and services. These action plans, if properly 

carried out, represent a reasonable basis for achieving AOC’s goal.
Appendix III

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Page 50 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

However, none of the individual action items associated with the three 

action plans has been completed, and many are not scheduled for 

completion until fiscal years 2006 and 2007. Furthermore, planning for 

certain items has not yet begun, and for some is not scheduled to begin 

until mid-fiscal year 2004. With regard to the length of time needed to 

complete individual action items, AOC management noted that they 

represent a measured approach to improving financial management while 

the agency’s other processes and systems mature. While AOC has made 

progress since our January 2003 report, much work remains in beginning to 

address unplanned action items and complete ongoing planning and 

implementation efforts. 

OCFO has made progress in planning and implementing actions designed 

to build a foundation of control and accountability. These efforts, most of 

which are associated with preparing AOC’s first auditable financial 

statements, are well underway. OCFO also reports progress in planning and 

implementing action items related to improving the partnership between 

financial management and operations. However, OCFO reports only limited 

progress on efforts to assess the role of AOC’s financial management 

organization in meeting mission objectives and to organize financial 

management so that it adds value to the organization. The CFO and his 

management team must ensure that proper planning begins where needed 

and ongoing planning and implementation is completed to achieve the goal 

of institutionalizing financial management best practices. In addition, 

because many completion dates are not scheduled until fiscal years 2006 

and 2007, the use of interim dates by AOC for monitoring progress would 

be beneficial. We will continue to monitor and evaluate OCFO’s progress in 

carrying out the actions needed to achieve this goal and to fully address our 

recommendation.
Page 51 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

Appendix IV

Information Technology ApendxiIV

In our January 2003 report, we made five recommendations to help the 

Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) adopt an agencywide approach 

to IT management. These recommendations are (1) establishing a chief 

information officer position, (2) developing and implementing effective 

investment management processes, (3) developing, implementing, and 

maintaining an enterprise architecture, (4) defining and implementing 

effective systems development and acquisition processes, and 

(5) establishing an effective information security program. This appendix 

describes AOC’s progress to date in addressing each of our 

recommendations. It also provides a brief explanation of why we made 

each recommendation, describes the actions that AOC has taken to 

implement each recommendation, and provides our analysis of whether 

AOC’s actions address the underlying issues that caused us to make the 

recommendation in our January 2003 report. It also provides additional 

recommendations relative to investment management and enterprise 

architecture management. 

Recommendation: Establish a chief information officer or 

comparable senior executive, with the responsibility, authority, and 

adequate resources for managing IT across the agency, who is a full 

participant in AOC’s senior decision-making processes and has 

clearly defined roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities. 

Our research of private- and public-sector organizations that effectively 

manage IT shows that these organizations have adopted an agencywide 

management approach under the leadership of a chief information officer, 

or comparable senior executive, who has the responsibility and authority 

for managing IT across the agency. AOC had a decentralized approach to 

management and spending in which each organizational component 

controlled its IT assets. 

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC has issued a centralized IT management 

policy1

 that assigns the OIRM director responsibility and authority for 

managing IT across the agency and makes the director a key participant in 

executive decision making, serving as the principal advisor to the Architect 

in applying IT to improve business processes. Also, the director’s roles and 

responsibilities include controlling the AOC IT budget and chairing the IT 

Project Management Board, which is the project oversight body for OIRM 

1

Architect of the Capitol, Centralized Oversight of Information Technology, Order 8-1-1, 

May 30, 2003.
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Page 52 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

projects. The director is organizationally positioned to report to the 

agency’s Deputy Chief of Staff, who is a member of AOC’s senior policy 

committee and also the chairman of the investment review board, which is 

the approval body for new IT investments beginning in fiscal year 2004. The 

director’s roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities also include 

overseeing and guiding the development, management, and use of IT 

throughout the agency. 

GAO Analysis: AOC has fulfilled our recommendation. First, AOC has 

established a senior executive (the OIRM director) with the responsibility, 

authority, and resources for managing IT across the agency. Second, by 

having the OIRM director’s supervisor chair the investment review board 

and sit on the senior policy committee, and by giving the IT director budget 

control, the agency has made the director a participant in senior decisionmaking. Third, AOC has defined in its IT policy the director’s roles, 

responsibilities, and accountabilities. 

Recommendation: Develop and implement IT investment 

management processes with the full support and participation of 

AOC’s senior leadership. Specifically, the Architect must develop a 

plan for developing and implementing the investment management 

processes, as appropriate, that are outlined in our IT investment 

management guide.2

 At a minimum, the plan should specify 

measurable tasks, goals, time frames, and resources required to 

develop and implement the processes. The Architect should focus 

first on the management processes associated with controlling 

existing projects and establishing the management structures to 

effectively implement an IT management process. 

On the basis of research of private- and public-sector organizations that 

effectively manage their IT investments, our IT investment management 

guide outlines a corporate, portfolio-based approach to investment 

decision making. This approach requires that a sound investment 

management process be able to (1) measure the progress of existing 

projects and (2) continually assess proposed and ongoing projects as an 

integrated and competing set of investment options. AOC had not satisfied 

2

U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology Investment Management: A 

Framework for Assessing and Improving Process Maturity, Version 1, GAO/AIMD-10.1.23 

(Washington, D.C.: May 2000). 
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the components of either of these two major steps and, as a result, did not 

have an agencywide, portfolio-based approach to investment management. 

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC is developing a new IT portfolio 

management process—called an investment framework—and plans to 

implement it in fiscal year 2004. AOC’s IT policy, signed by the Architect, 

states the framework is to provide an effective means to select projects 

that best support the agency’s mission. The current version of the 

framework, completed in October 2003, is organized along a “select, 

control, and evaluate” model. In January 2004, AOC stated that it has begun 

using the framework to control existing IT investments, using part of the 

framework—the process used to score proposed investments’ value and 

risk—on all fiscal year 2004 investments. An agency official told us that 

AOC intends to fully implement the framework by May 2004. To execute 

the select, control, and evaluate processes, the framework specifies four 

management structures—an architecture and standards committee, a 

project management board, a business systems modernization office, and 

an investment review board, and AOC has defined the memberships of 

each. 

GAO Analysis: AOC is partially addressing our recommendation. AOC’s 

draft investment management framework focuses on investment selection. 

However, consistent with our IT investment management guide, we 

recommended that the agency focus first on detailing and implementing 

processes to control existing investments and that efforts to develop and 

implement these processes be guided by a detailed plan. AOC does not 

have a documented plan, with the associated tasks, goals, time frames, and 

resources needed to implement the framework. Also, the agency has not 

focused first on controlling existing IT investments. According to our 

guide, to control existing investments, AOC should be (1) operating an IT 

investment board responsible for controlling investments that includes 

both senior IT and business representatives, (2) providing effective 

oversight for ongoing IT projects throughout all phases of their life cycle, 

(3) identifying, tracking, and managing IT resources; and (4) ensuring that 

each IT project supports the organization’s business needs. In January 

2004, AOC stated that it has begun operating its project investment review 

board that has recently been revised to include senior agency leaders (e.g., 

chief financial officer and superintendents). AOC’s framework addresses 

project oversight but does not specify how it will identify, track, and 

manage IT resources or ensure that projects support agency business 

needs. Further, although it intends to fully implement its IT investment 

management process by May 2004, AOC does not have a plan to do so that 
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focuses on controlling existing IT projects and fully defining and 

implementing more mature investment management processes. Having 

such a plan would be consistent with our IT investment management guide 

and our recommendation for having a road map for achieving needed 

investment management maturity progression. 

Additional Recommendation: We reiterate our recommendation that 

AOC develop and implement a plan that is consistent with our IT 

investment management guide and thus focus first on the practices 

associated with controlling existing IT investments. We also recommend 

that AOC plan for and implement those practices in our IT investment 

management guide associated with corporate, portfolio-based investment 

decision-making, such as (1) implementing criteria to select investments 

that will best support the organization’s strategic goals, objectives, and 

mission, (2) using these criteria to consistently analyze and prioritize all IT 

investments, (3) ensuring that the optimal investment portfolio with 

manageable risks and returns is selected and funded, and (4) overseeing 

each investment within the portfolio to ensure that it achieves its cost, 

benefit, schedule, and risk expectations.

Recommendation: Develop, implement, and maintain an enterprise 

architecture (EA) to guide and constrain IT projects throughout 

AOC. The Architect should implement the practices, as appropriate, 

as outlined in the Chief Information Officer Council’s architecture 

management guide.3

 As a first step, the Architect should establish 

the management structure for developing, implementing, and 

maintaining an EA by implementing the following actions:

• developing an agencywide policy statement providing a clear 

mandate for developing, implementing, and maintaining the 

architecture;

• establishing an executive body composed of stakeholders from 

AOC mission-critical program offices to guide the strategy for 

developing the EA and ensure agency support and resources for 

it; and

3

Chief Information Officers Council, A Practical Guide to Federal Enterprise Architecture, 

version 1.0 (Washington, D.C.: February 2001).
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• designating an individual who serves as a chief enterprise 

architect to develop policy, lead the development of the EA, and 

manage it as a formal program.

Our experience with federal agencies has shown that attempting to 

modernize IT environments without an EA to guide and constrain 

investments often results in systems that are duplicative, not well 

integrated, unnecessarily costly to maintain and interface, and ineffective 

in supporting mission goals. The development, implementation, and 

maintenance of architectures are recognized hallmarks of successful 

private and public organizations that effectively exploited IT in meeting 

their mission goals. At the time of our initial review, AOC did not have an 

EA or the management foundation needed to successfully develop one. 

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC’s centralized IT policy commits to 

developing, implementing, and maintaining an EA and gives OIRM 

responsibility for developing and maintaining it. AOC has also assigned 

responsibility for guiding EA development and approving it to the agency’s 

senior policy committee, which is composed of representatives from 

across the agency. According to the AOC Deputy Chief of Staff and the 

OIRM director, a chief enterprise architect position was requested, but not 

approved, in the fiscal year 2004 budget request, but the position has been 

included in the fiscal year 2005 budget request. In the interim, AOC has 

established a business systems modernization office in OIRM to provide 

technical and managerial support for architectural development. The 

agency also reports it has selected an architecture framework, the federal 

EA framework; hired a consultant to provide an architecture methodology 

and perform EA development work, and selected an automated tool to 

support development. Thus far, AOC has initiated activities to develop EA 

products, including completing the initial version of the existing, “as is,” 

and the target, “to be,” architectures—as well as a plan that will map out 

the transition from the “as is” to the “to be,” in September 2003. AOC 

reports that the Deputy Chief of Staff has since approved these products. 

The agency also stated that it has developed a detailed plan addressing 

resource needs for its EA effort, although we have not yet received a copy 

of the plan. AOC’s goal is to implement the target architecture by 

September 30, 2009. 

GAO Analysis: AOC is partially addressing our recommendation. AOC has 

issued a policy on developing, implementing, and maintaining an EA; 

established an executive board to oversee EA development, and assigned 

responsibility to develop, implement, and maintain the architecture to 
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Page 56 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

AOC’s Chief Technology Officer until a chief enterprise architect is hired. 

Thus, AOC has largely implemented our recommendations for launching 

the architecture effort but needs to execute the next steps toward 

completing, implementing, and maintaining an EA as detailed in our guide.4

Additional Recommendation: We recommend that AOC complete 

ongoing steps associated with developing its EA and implement additional 

steps to complete, maintain, and implement the architecture. In particular, 

we recommend that AOC plan for and implement the practices in our 

architecture management guide associated with leveraging an EA for 

organizational transformation, such as (1) ensuring that adequate 

resources are devoted to the program (funding, people, tools, and 

technology), (2) ensuring that the architecture describes both the “as is” 

and the “to be” environments in terms of performance, (3) ensuring that 

architecture business, performance, information and data, applications and 

services, and technology descriptions address security; and (4) ensuring 

that metrics are used to measure EA progress, quality, compliance, and 

return on investment. 

Recommendation: Require disciplined and rigorous processes for 

managing the development and acquisition of IT systems and 

implement the processes throughout AOC. Specifically, these 

processes should include the following:

• quality assurance processes, including developing a quality 

assurance plan and identifying applicable process and product 

standards that will be used in developing and assessing project 

processes and products;

• configuration management processes, including establishing a 

repository or configuration management system to maintain and 

control configuration management items;

• risk management processes, including developing a project risk 

management plan, identifying and prioritizing potential 

problems, implementing risk mitigation strategies, as required, 

and tracking and reporting progress against the plans; and

4

U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology: A Framework for Assessing and 

Improving Enterprise Architecture Management, GAO-03-584G (Washington, D.C.: April 

2003).
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• contract tracking and oversight processes, including developing a 

plan for tracking contractor activities, measuring contractor 

performance and conducting periodic reviews, and conducting 

internal reviews of tracking and oversight activities.

Our experience with federal agencies has shown that not having and 

following rigorous and disciplined development and acquisition processes 

can lead to systems that do not perform as intended, are delivered late, and 

cost more than planned. OIRM’s existing information system life-cycle 

guidance defined some of the key development and acquisition processes, 

but did not address either risk management or contract tracking and 

oversight, and only partly addressed quality assurance and configuration 

management. Moreover, these processes had not been adopted and 

implemented agencywide. 

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC awarded a contract in June 2003 to develop 

a new agencywide information systems life-cycle methodology that is to 

incorporate processes consistent with the Software Engineering Institute’s 

Capability Maturity Model® Integration.5

 The contract requires delivery of 

the methodology by January 31, 2004. OIRM plans to pilot test the new lifecycle processes, obtain feedback from these tests, and refine the processes 

as necessary before issuing guidance and beginning implementation as an 

AOC-wide standard starting March 31, 2004. 

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation. By contracting for a new life-cycle methodology 

consistent with the Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity 

Model® Integration, AOC has taken action aimed at defining disciplined and 

rigorous processes for managing the development and acquisition of IT 

systems, including quality assurance, configuration management, contract 

tracking and oversight, and risk management. AOC still needs to ensure 

that it obtains a well-defined set of processes and that these processes are 

in fact implemented by March 31, 2004, as planned. 

Recommendation: Establish and implement an information security 

program. Specifically, the Architect should establish an information 

security program by taking the following steps: 

5

 Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute, Capability Maturity Model® Integration 

(CMMISM), version 1.1 (March 2002).
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• designate a security officer and provide him or her with the 

authority and resources to implement an agencywide security 

program; 

• develop and implement policy and guidance to perform risk 

assessments continually; 

• use the results of the risk assessments to develop and implement 

appropriate controls; 

• develop policies for security training and awareness and provide 

the training; and 

• monitor and evaluate policy and control effectiveness. 

Our research of private- and public-sector organizations6 recognized as 

having strong information security programs shows that their programs 

include (1) establishing a central focal point with appropriate resources, 

(2) continually assessing business risks, (3) implementing and maintaining 

policies and controls, (4) promoting awareness, and (5) monitoring and 

evaluating policy and control effectiveness. Although AOC had taken 

important steps to establish an information security program, much 

remains to be done, including hiring an information security officer and an 

information security specialist, before this program satisfies recognized 

best practices. 

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC has filled its information security officer 

position and, on May 30, 2003, issued a policy7

 that gives this official the 

responsibility and authority to establish and implement an agencywide 

information security program. According to AOC, most of the necessary 

security resources (staff) were in place to begin the program as of October 

9, 2003, and the agency has since filled the remaining position with contract 

resources. Further, AOC has drafted two additional policies, one mandating 

periodic risk assessments to determine information system vulnerabilities

6

U.S. General Accounting Office, Executive Guide: Information Security Management, 

Learning from Leading Organizations, GAO/AIMD-98-68 (Washington, D.C.: May 1998).

7

Architect of the Capitol, Authority Policy and Responsibility of the Chief Information 

Security Officer,Order 7-1-1, May 30, 2003.
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and use the results to institute appropriate controls,8 and another 

mandating security awareness and training for all AOC system users.9

According to AOC, issuance of these policies is scheduled for March 31, 

2004, and the agency plans to begin awareness training by April 2004. In 

addition, the agency stated that its comprehensive IT security plan is being 

revised and estimates that this work will be completed in June 2004. Also, 

AOC plans to contract out the development of audit and review procedures 

to monitor and evaluate policy and program effectiveness; use AOC, 

contractor, and inspector general staff to conduct risk assessments and 

audits; and contract for an independent security audit of AOC systems by 

September 30, 2004. 

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation. AOC has laid some of the foundation for establishing an 

effective security program, such as designating an information security 

officer and giving this official the authority to implement an agencywide 

security program; but work remains to first define and then execute this 

program. The key is for AOC to follow through on stated commitments to 

provide proper resources for the program, finalize its security policies, 

define processes for implementing the policies, and implement them. 

8

Architect of the Capitol, IT Security Risk Management Policy, Order 7-2-2, July 31, 2003 

(Draft).

9

Architect of the Capitol, INFOSEC Training, Education, and Awareness Policy, Order 7-1-

3, July 31, 2003 (Draft).
Page 60 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

Appendix V

Worker Safety ApendxiV

In our January 2003 report, we made seven recommendations to help the 

Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) improve its overall approach to 

worker safety by identifying performance measures, clearly defining 

policies and procedures for reporting hazards, establishing a consistent 

system for conducting investigations and followup, establishing a safety 

training curriculum, assigning clear responsibility for tracking worker 

safety employee training, clarifying the role of the Office of the Attending 

Physician (OAP) in helping AOC to meet its safety goals, and establishing a 

senior management work group to routinely discuss worker compensation 

issues. This appendix describes AOC’s progress to date in addressing each 

of our recommendations. We provide a brief review of why we made each 

recommendation, report the actions that AOC has taken to implement the 

recommendation, and provide our analysis of whether AOC’s actions 

address the underlying issues that caused us to make the recommendation 

in our January 2003 report. 

Recommendation: Identify performance measures for safety goals 

and objectives, including measures for how AOC will implement the 

43 specialized safety programs1

 and how superintendents and 

employees will be held accountable for achieving results.

At the time of our management review, 15 of AOC’s 43 safety policies had 

been written and approved by the Architect. However, the standard 

operating procedures for these policies had not been approved, and several 

jurisdictions were using separate standard operating procedures that were 

unique to each jurisdiction. In addition, AOC had not yet developed 

performance measures or interim milestones that could be used to assess 

the implementation of these policies. Finally, AOC had not fully linked 

senior manager and employee performance with the achievement of its 

safety goals. 

Actions Taken by AOC: According to AOC officials and documents we 

reviewed, a number of steps have been taken to address this 

recommendation. First, the number of safety policies has been reduced 

from 43 to 34 to better reflect the type of activities conducted at AOC. 

Second, AOC has drafted an Occupational Safety and Health Program 

(OSH) Plan, which establishes the objectives, actions, and milestones 

necessary to achieve the agency’s safety and health goals. One objective is 

to establish additional policies and procedures to ensure AOC complies 

1

The safety programs are now referred to as safety policies.
Appendix V

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Page 61 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations 

and protects employee health. Third, within the draft OSH plan, AOC has 

created a schedule for developing and implementing all 34 safety policies. 

Fourth, AOC is creating a standard template that identifies the critical 

elements, such as the tools and training requirements, for each policy.AOC 

is using the standard template to help ensure that the safety policies are 

consistently implemented across the 11 jurisdictions. Fifth, AOC has 

identified broader program goals that demonstrate its commitment to 

worker safety. AOC is establishing performance measures for each of the 

34 safety policies to demonstrate progress toward the safety program goals 

and objectives. In addition, AOC has requested increases in the 

jurisdictional training budget for AOC employees. Finally, AOC is using a 

safety performance requirement within its PRP, senior employee 

performance management system, and its PCES, employee performance 

management system, to hold all senior managers and employees 

accountable for safety results. 

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation. The draft OSH plan recognizes that implementation of 

AOC’s 34 safety policies will require an agencywide cultural transition that 

will take a number of years of focused commitment to attain, including 

additional resource commitments. While implementation of all 34 safety 

policies had been targeted for completion by fiscal year 2005, this date has 

been extended to fiscal year 2007. 2

 As of the beginning of fiscal year 2004, 

no safety policy has been fully implemented. 

The draft OSH plan identifies performance measures for some safety and 

health objectives. For example, the draft OSH plan indicates a performance 

measure for the objective “enhance employee awareness of and 

involvement in all aspects of safety and health” and includes publicizing the 

minutes from monthly meetings of jurisdictions to discuss safety and 

health. However, this performance measure is not fully developed or 

results oriented. To its credit, the draft OSH plan does indicate that 

performance measures for many of the 34 safety policies will

2

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Program Plan, policy development is an 

extensive and iterative process of regulatory research, best practice review, integration with 

existing AOC policies and practices, stakeholder input, and management approval. 
Appendix V

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Page 62 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

be determined as each policy is developed, though many of the safety 

policies will not be developed for a number of years.3

Implementation of the 34 safety policies, even under the extended time 

frame, could be jeopardized according to AOC officials, if the increased 

staff and funding needs to accomplish the plan are not met. Four of the five 

jurisdictional superintendents we interviewed said they would need 

additional staff to fully implement the safety policies. In addition, both 

jurisdictional and central AOC officials said the jurisdictional training 

budgets would need to be increased to meet the training objectives 

established in the draft Occupational Safety and Health Program Plan. 

Moreover, one AOC jurisdictional official stated that if the request for 

additional staff members were not approved, the implementation plan 

would likely be delayed beyond fiscal year 2007. To the extent that AOC 

establishes a sound business case for additional staff and funding, having 

the appropriate resources in place to implement the safety policies will 

help AOC meet its time frames. 

AOC has been unable to meet the original targeted time frame (fiscal year 

2005) due to the need to revise the methodology for developing the safety 

policies.4

 This was mainly due, according to AOC officials, to insufficient 

staff resources in the jurisdictions, as well as the need for consistency 

across jurisdictions. Specifically, AOC headquarters is developing a 

standard template for jurisdictions to use rather than relying upon 

jurisdictions to create their own standard operating procedures for each 

safety policy. While two of the safety policy standard templates have been 

drafted, neither has been released because the agency needs to make the 

procedures more user friendly for front-line employees.

Although AOC has stated it intends to link performance measures to each 

of the 34 safety policies, the data needed to successfully identify individual 

measures have not been collected. In addition, training needs identified in 

the draft OSH plan are dependent upon approval of additional funding 

3

In responding to our draft report, AOC officials noted that a key indicator was not 

mentioned -- the Injury and Illness rate. The Injury and Illness rate measures job related 

injuries and illnesses per 100 employees as recorded under the Federal Employees 

Compensation Act program. In addition, AOC officials indicated that this rate was 7.87 in FY 

2003, representing a 56 percent reduction from AOC’s FY 2000 rate. Within the scope of this 

assignment, we did not independently verify this rate.

4

See footnote 34. 
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Page 63 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

requests, if negative service effects are to be avoided, according to AOC. 

Moreover, AOC officials stated the updated time frame for full 

implementation of the safety policies may need to be further extended to 

meet the training commitments identified in the draft OSH plan.

AOC’s efforts to further develop and use performance management 

systems to help clarify accountability for safety results is an encouraging 

sign. However, the system for evaluating front-line employees does not yet 

contain specific objective standards and criteria for evaluating individuals 

on safety issues. Including these would help ensure that employees will be 

encouraged to report hazards, that supervisors will take those reports 

seriously, and that senior managers will be accountable for acting on these 

reports. 

Recommendation: Establish clearly defined and documented 

policies and procedures for reporting hazards similar to those that 

apply to injury and illness reporting.

During our management review, we found that although AOC had a number 

of mechanisms for involving employees in its safety program and 

encouraged employees to report injuries and hazards, AOC lacked a hazard 

reporting mechanism and moreover, some employees were hesitant to 

report hazards to management because they were not sure how seriously 

their supervisors would treat these reports. As a result, AOC could not 

ensure that there was a complete reporting of hazards. 

Actions Taken by AOC: First, AOC plans to develop a Hazard Assessment 

and Control policy, one of its 34 safety policies, beginning October 2003 

through June 2004 and fully implement the policy by May 2006. Second, as a 

key component in developing its Hazard Assessment and Control policy, 

AOC plans to identify hazards associated with specific job tasks. AOC calls 

this task a Job Hazard Analysis (JHA).5

 AOC has created a schedule for 

completing each JHA. In addition, AOC has contracted with the 

Department of Health and Human Services Public Health Service (PHS) to 

identify hazards associated with job tasks in each jurisdiction. For all 

5

AOC’s Occupational Safety and Health Program Plan splits the development and 

implementation of the Hazard Assessment and Control policy into two segments, one 

dealing with the completion of JHA and the other dealing with implementation of the 

operational aspects of this policy. The time frames we cite here apply to the operational 

segment of the policy. The JHA segment is scheduled to be fully implemented by the end of 

calendar year 2004.
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Page 64 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

potentially hazardous conditions identified, the job hazard analysis will 

include appropriate use of personal protective equipment, medical 

surveillance, training, and engineering controls.According to AOC officials, 

the JHA process has been completed for two jurisdictions—the Senate and 

the Construction Management Division. Lastly, while a majority of the 

jurisdictions awaits full development and implementation of the Hazard 

Assessment and Control policy and the Facility Management Assistant 

(FMA) system, jurisdictions continue to rely upon their own hazard 

reporting processes. The FMA system will (1) track and analyze the 

number and types of hazards and (2) identify follow-up corrective actions 

to ameliorate hazards. In addition, AOC plans to expand the capacity of the 

FMA system by purchasing an incident investigation module. This will 

allow AOC to track the investigation of incidents following injuries, 

illnesses, fatalities, and near misses. The FMA system is commercially 

available and contains a suite of software components. AOC officials 

reported that these processes vary across jurisdictions and involve formal 

reporting procedures and mechanisms, such as submission of standard 

forms for reporting hazards, as well as informal measures, such as e-mail 

messages and periodic employee meetings. In addition, AOC officials 

discuss hazards as well as other safety and health issues at meetings 

convened by AOC employee and managerial committees.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation. While AOC has established a plan and initiated actions to 

improve reporting of hazards, the development and implementation of 

AOC-wide policy and procedures for hazard reporting is expected to take 

years to complete due to the time needed to develop and fully implement 

this safety policy. Notably, the Hazard Assessment and Control policy is not 

expected to be fully implemented until 2006.

AOC has made some strides in its efforts to initiate a comprehensive survey 

of hazards. Until AOC completes the implementation of this policy and 

subsequent analysis across all jurisdictions, it will not be able to develop a 

comprehensive picture of AOC hazards. Additionally, until AOC completes 

the system-wide process for investigating incidents across all jurisdictions, 

it will not be able to develop a comprehensive picture of AOC incidents, 

including their causes.

Recommendation: Establish a consistent AOC-wide system for 

conducting investigations and follow-up.
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Page 65 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

During our management review, we found that although AOC had a number 

of mechanisms to obtain employee involvement and encourage employees 

to report incidents, accidents, and illnesses, the existing control 

mechanisms could not ensure that all reports were treated consistently 

across AOC. As a result, AOC could not ensure that there was a complete 

investigation of incidents, accidents, and illnesses.

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC plans to develop an incident reporting 

policy, one of its 34 safety policies, to be fully implemented by May 2005. A 

key component of this policy is an incident investigation module. The 

module is expected to track—in electronic form—data on injuries, near 

misses, and property damage following an incident. AOC officials told us 

they expect to purchase the module, as well as complete the policies and 

procedures pertaining to incident reporting, by March 2004.Beginning in 

March 2004, AOC plans to have one jurisdiction test the incident reporting 

policy. 

As mentioned previously, the incident investigation module will be a 

component of AOC’s integrated FMA system. Pending development of the 

incident investigation module of the FMA system, jurisdictions will 

continue to rely upon their own incident investigation methods. These 

processes vary across jurisdictions and include formal reporting 

procedures and mechanisms, such as submission of standard forms for 

reporting injuries and illnesses, safety hotlines, and accident investigation 

teams. 

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation. While AOC has established a plan and initiated actions to 

improve the reporting of incidents, the development and implementation of 

AOC-wide policy and procedures for incident reporting is expected to take 

at least a year to complete due to the need to fully develop a reporting 

system that will track incidents. Until this occurs, jurisdictions will 

continue to use separate systems for identifying and reporting incidents. 

Additionally, until AOC completes the systemwide process for investigating 

incidents, it will not be able to develop a comprehensive picture of AOC 

incidents, including their causes, across all jurisdictions. While the system 

takes an extended time to develop, important information positioning the 

agency to develop proactive strategies to avoid incidents is left untapped. 

Moreover, central office safety staff will be able to view cross-jurisdictional 

data. However, officials in two of the five jurisdictions we interviewed said 

they could benefit from increased access to incident data from other 
Appendix V

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Page 66 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

jurisdictions, beyond the limited information currently provided by central 

office safety staff.

Finally AOC does not, at this time, have a definitive strategy to integrate the 

FMA system with the system to generate work orders to correct identified 

hazards. The lack of a hazard identification work order generation link 

could lead to a missed opportunity to strategically manage hazard reporting 

and the identification of abatement actions. Furthermore, some jurisdiction 

officials told us that having separate systems for reporting and abatement 

creates more work for them. Having separate systems could discourage use 

of the FMA system, thereby defeating its purpose. However, a senior AOC 

official stated that further linkages between these separate systems are 

possible as part of AOC’s EA efforts.

Recommendation: Establish a safety training curriculum that fully 

supports all of the goals of the safety program and further evaluate 

the effectiveness of the training provided.

During our management review, we found that although AOC uses a 

compliance-based approach to providing safety training, it would benefit 

from targeting its safety awareness training to better motivate employees at 

all levels to incorporate safety into all aspects of their work.

Actions Taken by AOC: According to AOC documents we reviewed and 

officials we interviewed, the agency has developed a Safety Training Plan 

to provide guidance to all managers and employees to properly identify and 

select training courses to ensure compliance with policy requirements. The 

plan contains a training matrix that lists the training for each safety policy 

with a training requirement, including the list of courses, frequency of 

training, and target audiences (e.g., employees working in the electrical and 

masonry shops) for each safety policy. The plan states that it is not 

intended to replace or supercede specific training requirements that are 

delineated in individual safety policies. In some cases, the course content is 

specifically tailored to an individual jurisdiction and target audience, which 

will assist supervisors and participants with relating the training to their 

work environment. However, such tailoring has not been completed for all 

courses. In addition, AOC uses formal methods to evaluate training, such as 

a participant evaluation form, as well as informal methods, such as 

following up with participants’ supervisors to obtain feedback on training 

sessions. Also, Safety Policy Managers audit courses and provide feedback 

to course designers and instructors. Finally, the fiscal year 2005 training 

budget request will include funds for additional staff that AOC believes are 
Appendix V

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Page 67 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

necessary to support front-line work while employees fulfill their training 

requirements.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation. While AOC has taken some concrete steps to change the 

culture of workplace safety through training, measures to assess the actual 

effectiveness of these training courses on employee behavior have not been 

developed. A senior AOC official also recognized the need to better 

evaluate AOC’s training system. AOC officials believe that if the agency’s 

fiscal year 2005 budget request for additional staff is not met, then (1) the 

timeline for all employees meeting their training requirements, as identified 

in the draft OSH plan, may need to be extended or (2) AOC could 

experience a loss in productivity while employees receive training. Finally, 

the FMA system, which will be used to track and identify corrective actions 

for hazards and incidents, will not be aligned to the training system to help 

identify and target training needs to address high-risk areas. 

Recommendation: Assign clear responsibility for tracking and 

recording training received by AOC employees, including 

maintaining an inventory of employees’ certifications and licenses.

During our management review, we found that the procedures and 

responsibilities for monitoring training requirements for the safety program 

were not well defined. In addition, AOC safety and HRMD officials had not 

established a systematic process to identify training needs for individual 

employees to help ensure the safety program’s success. 

Actions Taken by AOC: Although senior officials in the jurisdictions are 

responsible for monitoring employee training needs, they cannot access 

HRMD’s database of AOC-sponsored training courses and employees 

training attendance. According to AOC officials we interviewed, some 

jurisdictions continue to track training information on their own, which 

may create inconsistencies in reporting and lead to duplicative recordkeeping. In addition, we found that although AOC’s draft Safety Master 

Plan6

 noted that an electronic reminder tool—called a tickler—would be 

added to HRMD’s training database to identify training needs for individual 

employees, it has yet to be developed. A senior AOC official told us that 

funds have currently been made available to research the requirements 

6

AOC changed the title of its worker safety plan from Safety Master Plan to Occupational 

Safety and Health Program Plan.
Appendix V

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Page 68 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

needed to develop the electronic reminder tool—now referred to as a data 

management system. The official stated that the data management system 

will track whether requirements in training, licensing, certifications, and 

medical surveillance for employees have been met. AOC expects this 

system to be operational by fiscal year 2005. AOC indicated that as part of 

its effort to integrate agency goals and multiple data systems under its EA 

plan, it intends at some point to develop an agencywide system that will 

identify employees’ training needs, including certification and licensing 

requirements.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation. Procedures and responsibilities for monitoring training 

requirements for the safety program, while beginning to move in the right 

direction, remain poorly defined. Although HRMD’s database tracks and 

records employee training, including training to meet licensing and 

certification requirements, the database (1) does not proactively identify 

training needed to maintain employees’ licensing and certification 

requirements and (2) is not accessible to the jurisdictions. As a result, 

several jurisdictions had created and continue to use separate systems to 

track employee training and maintain certification and licensure 

requirements.Although AOC plans to address employee training 

requirement gaps through the development of its EA plan, it has yet to take 

any substantial steps to do so. 

Recommendation: Clarify and explore the possibility of expanding 

the role of the Office of the Attending Physician (OAP) in helping 

AOC meet its safety goals, consistent with the broad 

responsibilities laid out in the 1998 Memorandum of Understanding 

between AOC and OAP.

During our management review, we found that although OAP provides 

important health and safety assistance to AOC, such as conducting OSHAmandated medical examinations on employees exposed to hazardous 

substances, the role of OAP could be more clearly defined and expanded. 

In particular, the 1998 Memorandum of Understanding between OAP and 

AOC allows a broader role for OAP in several areas, such as providing 

trend information on the results of medical examinations.

Actions Taken by AOC: Over the past 6 months, an OAP representative 

has been attending AOC’s Safety, Health and Environmental Council 

(SHEC) and Jurisdiction Occupational Safety and Health (JOSH) meetings 

and has been involved in reviewing and commenting on AOC’s 
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Page 69 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

development of 34 safety policies, particularly the policy concerning 

medical examinations required for employees exposed to known hazards. 

In addition, OAP has been reviewing recommendations for injured 

employees who are attempting to return to work on “light-duty.”

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation. While AOC has taken worthwhile steps to involve OAP in 

the development of safety policies and the discussion of safety issues, it 

has not identified or pursued other key areas where OAP could play a 

significant role in enhancing efforts to ensure worker safety. For example, 

AOC has not taken any concrete steps to obtain data or analyses from OAP 

medical examinations that might identify health-related trends. While AOC 

officials told us that confidentiality issues might interfere with such efforts, 

no steps have been taken to address and overcome this concern.

Recommendation: Establish a senior management work group that 

will routinely discuss workers’ compensation cases and costs, and 

develop strategies to reduce these injuries and costs.

A senior management work group would provide staff in HRMD, the 

central office, and the jurisdictions with a forum to discuss new and 

ongoing claims and facilitate the exchange of information to further control 

workers’ compensation costs. At the time of our last review, HRMD used 

injury data primarily for processing workers’ compensation costs, and 

central staff did not systematically analyze the data. Jurisdiction staff, on 

the other hand, did not routinely receive data on costs associated with 

injuries. 

Actions Taken by AOC: Rather than create a separate work group, AOC 

officials discuss workers’ compensation costs at the SHEC meetings.

SHEC meetings are held each quarter and participants include senior 

managers from HRMD, the central office, and the jurisdictions, as well as 

JOSH representatives, an OAP representative, and a senior council 

member. During the meeting, HRMD and its Workers’ Compensation 

Program Unit provide relevant data on workers’ compensation issues, 

including discussions on best practices that can be used to lower workers’ 

compensation costs.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation, which was intended to ensure that senior management 

and other key stakeholders routinely discuss data on workers’ 

compensation. AOC plans to develop new approaches to reduce workers’ 
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Page 70 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

compensation costs based upon these discussions. However, no solutions 

or new approaches to address workers’ compensation costs have thus far 

been developed.
Page 71 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

Appendix VI

Project Management ApendxiVI

In our January 2003 report, we made five recommendations to help the 

Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) improve its overall approach to 

project management by developing a Capitol Hill complex master plan and 

completing building condition assessments, developing a transparent 

process to prioritize agency capital projects, developing tools to effectively 

communicate priorities and progress of projects, clearly defining projectmanagement-related measures, and aligning project management staff and 

resources with mission-critical goals. This appendix describes AOC’s 

progress to date in addressing each of our recommendations. We provide a 

brief review of why we made each recommendation, report the actions that 

AOC has taken to implement the recommendation, and provide our 

analysis of whether AOC’s actions address the underlying issues that 

caused us to make the recommendation in our January 2003 report. 

Recommendation: Develop a Capitol Hill complex master plan and 

complete condition assessments of all buildings and facilities under 

the jurisdiction of AOC.

Master planning is necessary to help AOC establish long-term priorities, but 

progress has been slow. In July 2001, the Senate Committee on 

Appropriations expressed concern that AOC needed to develop a master 

plan for the Capitol Hill complex. Over a year later the National Academy 

of Sciences (NAS) held a planning workshop for AOC to determine the 

scope of a Capitol Hill complex master plan. A key component of a master 

plan is building condition assessments (BCA), which are systematic 

evaluations of an organization’s assets. When conducted, BCAs must be 

carried out consistently across all jurisdictions to help ensure that all 

assets are evaluated in the same manner and that AOC-wide priorities can 

be set. We reported in our January 2003 report that AOC had recently 

formed a condition assessment team to develop a detailed statement of 

work for conducting BCAs.

Actions Taken by AOC: According to the Acting Chief for AOC Office of 

Design and Construction (ODC), AOC received the NAS report in June 2003 

and is developing the requirements for the Capitol Hill complex master 

plan.1

 The NAS study provided guidance on developing a scope of services 

for a master plan. Based on more detailed work that AOC has done in 

1

National Research Council of the National Academies, Working in Olmsted’s Shadow: 

Guidance for Developing a Scope of Services for the Update of the Master Plan for the U.S. 

Capitol and Grounds (Washington, D.C.: The National Academies Press, 2003).
Appendix VI

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Page 72 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

developing the scope for the master plan, AOC revised its schedule to show 

the consultant being selected in February 2004 and the final master plan 

being completed in December 2006.

AOC’s Acting Chief of ODC said that AOC is completing the statement of 

work for the BCAs. He said that AOC plans to award BCA contracts for its 

three largest jurisdictions—the House, Capitol, and Senate—in 2003. 

According to AOC, the statements of work for the Capitol and Senate BCAs 

have now been completed, and it expected to award the contracts in 

December 2003. These building assessments are expected to take about 

one year to complete. The Acting Chief of ODC said that the BCAs for the 

other buildings under AOC management would be awarded in fiscal years 

2004 and 2005. 

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation, although, in its March 7, 2003, draft performance plan, 

AOC showed that it planned to publish the final Capitol Hill complex 

master plan on April 1, 2006. In addition, the current schedule shows the 

final plan being completed 8 months later in December 2006. AOC’s 

schedule shows that most of the additional time, 6 months, was added so 

AOC can obtain and incorporate comments and finalize the plan. 

Completion of the BCAs is also behind the tentative schedule developed in 

March 2003. The first BCAs were to be completed March 31, 2004. But since 

not all BCA contracts are expected to be awarded until December 2003, 

and the work is expected to take about 1 year, it appears that the initial 

BCAs for the three largest jurisdictions will not be completed until the fall 

of 2004. Completion of the other BCAs will depend on when funding is 

received. Since the BCAs are a key component of the master plan, AOC will 

need to push to get these completed as soon as possible so they can be 

integrated into the master plan. It is important to recognize that once the 

BCAs are completed they should be updated on a regular schedule. 

Recommendation: Develop a process for assigning project priorities 

that is based on clearly defined, well documented, consistently 

applied, and transparent criteria.

During our management review, the lack of a transparent process to 

prioritize projects was identified as a major weakness at AOC. Priorities 

were determined on the subjective decisions made by jurisdiction officials 

and not on predefined criteria. The only day-to-day prioritization that was 

used was a “hot projects” list. Projects were subjectively placed on this list 
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Page 73 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

based on time sensitivity and high dollar volume; however, the process for 

placing projects onto this list was neither formal nor consistently applied. 

We reported in our January 2003 report that AOC lacked a process that can 

communicate, both internally and externally, the trade-offs in prioritizing 

one project over another or how individual projects fit within a broader 

AOC framework.

Actions Taken by AOC: According to the ODC Acting Chief, in February 

2003, AOC worked with a consultant to develop evaluation criteria to 

prioritize building projects. For prioritization purposes, each project is 

evaluated in five areas and assigned a score, based on a 100-point scale, in 

each area. The areas that building projects are evaluated in are

1. preservation—preservation of historic or legacy buildings and the 

importance of the Architect’s stewardship role,

2. impact on mission—impact on mission/client urgency/ accommodating 

new or changed mission,

3. economic impact—payback, cost savings, or cost avoidance,

4. safety—fire and life safety and other code, regulatory, or statutory 

requirements,

5. security—physical security.

In working with its consultant, AOC developed a matrix to provide criteria 

and guidance on how to evaluate and score the projects in each of the 

defined areas. For example, when evaluating a project in the area of 

preservation, 80 points may be given to a project that includes the 

preservation of a highly significant historical feature, while only 20 points 

may be given to a project with less historical significance. Projects are 

ranked based on the total number of points they receive in all five areas. 

These criteria were developed after the fiscal year 2005 projects were 

submitted for the proposed budget, but according to the AOC Deputy 

Director of Engineering, they then applied this criteria to prioritize those 

projects. The prioritized list of projects was then shared with the 

superintendents who validated the results of the prioritization. For the 

fiscal year 2005 projects, the prioritization was not used to determine 

which projects would be included in the budget request, but only the order 

in which they would be done. He said that in the future, when the 

prioritization is used to determine which projects would be submitted for 
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Page 74 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

funding, there may be more discussion about why projects were scored in a 

particular way. 

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing this 

recommendation. AOC has created a clearly defined, well-documented, and 

transparent process for evaluating and prioritizing projects. While 

determining the priority of projects will always be somewhat subjective, 

AOC has developed a reasonable approach using a matrix to help raters 

score projects in five areas. The matrix provides clear guidance and 

specifies issues to consider when scoring projects in each of the five rating 

areas. Since the evaluation criteria have not yet been used to determine 

which projects will be submitted for funding, it remains to be seen if they 

will be consistently applied. Using this matrix and documenting the factors 

used in making the priority decisions should help AOC support its capital 

improvement program.

Recommendation: Develop tools to effectively communicate 

priorities and progress of projects, as a part of a broader 

communication strategy.

At the time of our management review, AOC lacked the tools to 

communicate its priorities internally to staff and externally to clients and 

provide details on how related projects are linked to one another. AOC 

officials said that the Project Information Center (PIC) system, the 

database of all project-related information, was used to prioritize work and 

ascertain the progress of projects, but it was not capable of producing a 

unified document that shows schedules of active projects, their 

interrelationships, and required staff. Without a resource-loaded project 

master-planning capability, it is difficult to determine the effect of priority 

changes and to quantify project manager staffing requirements. In addition, 

the information in PIC was not consistently updated nor was it 

systematically reviewed to determine its accuracy. While AOC used the PIC 

system to prepare a quarterly capital projects report that provided the 

status of all ongoing capital projects, the report did not highlight projects 

that were behind schedule, over budget, or otherwise of interest to clients. 

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC has worked to improve the capabilities of 

its PIC system and the format of its quarterly report on capital projects. 

AOC has improved the capabilities of PIC by adding links to the financial 

management system and building/project drawings. According to AOC 

officials, AOC has identified a software package capable of producing a 

unified schedule that shows staff resources and a purchase order has been 
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Page 75 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

issued for the software and supporting consulting to accomplish proper 

installation of the application.

To improve the accuracy and timeliness of PIC data, the Director of the 

Technical Support Division told us that AOC has verbally and in writing 

reemphasized the importance of timely and accurate data. He also said that 

two people review the data monthly looking for inaccuracies and missing 

data. 

AOC has revised the quarterly report format to make it more user friendly. 

The quarterly report is color coded so the user can quickly identify those 

projects that are behind schedule or need additional funding. The report 

also includes summary information and highlights projects of particular 

interest for reasons such as not being on schedule or requiring additional 

funding. The report also discusses the resolution of issues related to 

projects highlighted in the previous report. 

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation. It is encouraging that AOC has made improvements to 

PIC, but AOC will continue to have difficulty managing schedules and 

workload until it is able to produce a unified schedule to show the status of 

the projects and the responsible project managers. We did not verify the 

accuracy of the PIC data but the Director of the Technical Support Division 

said that they are focusing on improving data accuracy and completeness.

While the usefulness of the quarterly report has improved, our analysis 

shows that the project schedule charts can still be confusing. For example, 

the “work on schedule” bar on the chart shows that the work is on schedule 

when it has not yet begun, which can make it appear that a large 

percentage of AOC’s projects is on schedule when actually projects have 

not yet begun. It would also be helpful if the individual project summaries 

indicated when a project’s schedule has been changed and why the 

schedule was changed. In addition, the report indicates when additional 

project funding is being requested, but it is not always clear if the requested 

funding is for cost overruns or if the funding request was planned and is for 

a new phase of the project. 

Recommendation: Define project-management-related performance 

measures to achieve mission-critical strategic and annual 

performance goals.
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During our management review, we found that AOC needed to work with 

its stakeholders to determine its long-term strategic goals and annual 

performance goals for project management. The development of annual 

performance goals that provide a connection between long-term goals and 

day-to-day activities would enable AOC to track its progress, provide 

critical information for decision-making and foster individual 

accountability. 

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC’s draft strategic plan and draft performance 

plan identify some measures and processes that will be used to monitor 

and evaluate AOC’s success. The measures identified in the draft strategic 

plan are (1) projects executed and delivered on time and on budget and

(2) client satisfaction. In June 2003, AOC defined uniform operating 

procedures for conducting customer satisfaction surveys. As defined in 

these procedures, the purpose of such a customer satisfaction survey is to 

assess the gap between the services provided by AOC and the needs of its 

customers. These procedures generically apply to the process of 

developing, administering, and managing the data from any customer 

satisfaction survey. 

AOC’s draft performance plan also identified the following new 

assessments (1) evaluation of design teams’ performance, (2) evaluation of 

architects’, engineers’ (A/E), and general contractors’ (GC) performance, 

and (3) post-occupancy evaluations of buildings to evaluate design and 

standards performance over time. In July 2003, AOC issued operating 

procedures for conducting project design satisfaction surveys. The purpose 

of these surveys is to provide internal customers an open platform to 

express appreciation or concern about their design activity. According to 

the procedures, the surveys will be done on an ad hoc basis upon 

completion of a design project. According to an AOC official in the Office 

of the Administrative Assistant, the draft survey is being reviewed within 

AOC. 

As part of the AOC’s Design and Construction Office ongoing best practices 

initiative, it had hired a consultant to evaluate five recently completed 

construction projects to identify lessons learned that could be applied to 

other projects. Key participants in the projects were surveyed about how 

the projects performed in the following areas (1) organization/teamwork, 

(2) planning process, (3) design process, (4) procurement process, and

(5) construction process. The consultant reported on “why projects went 

right,” identified areas for improvement, and made recommendations in 

each of the areas. According to the report, upgrades were recommended to 
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AOC project manager’s manual and standards and these recommendations 

were incorporated into the project manager training held in the spring 

2003. 

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation. While AOC’s draft strategic plan has identified types of 

performance measures, it has yet to formally define specific measurable 

performance goals. The Acting Chief for ODC told us that he believes that 

the performance goal for this division is for all projects to be delivered on 

time and on budget, but this is not specifically written as a goal. In addition, 

clarity is needed for how and when a project’s schedule and budget 

benchmarks are established and when they can be changed. For example, if 

a project’s schedule is based on receiving funding during the current year, 

yet it does not receive the funding until the next year, we understand that 

AOC will change the project’s schedule benchmark. It is not clear that this 

decision is documented in the project summary in the quarterly report to 

Congress.

As part of obtaining stakeholder input for project management, AOC’s draft 

performance plan identifies a number of surveys that will be used to 

monitor and evaluate projects. While AOC has developed procedures for 

conducting the project design satisfaction surveys, the actual survey, which 

was tentatively scheduled to be ready on June 30, 2003, is still being 

finalized within AOC. The A/E and GC surveys are not scheduled to be 

ready for distribution until spring 2004, and the process for developing 

post-occupancy evaluations will not be completed until fall 2005. 

The lessons learned report that sought feedback from stakeholders and 

participants on five recently completed projects to make specific 

recommendations on how to improve performance on future projects is 

also an important development.

Recommendation: Align project management staff and resources 

with AOC’s mission-critical goals.

At the time of our management review, AOC recognized that the current 

approach of assigning mostly architects and engineers as project managers 

was ineffective. Project managers said that they were being asked to wear 

“too many hats,” which often distracted them from their primary duty of 

managing projects. AOC officials responsible for project management had 

proposed the creation of a new and independent Project Management 

Division. However, we noted that such realignment must support the 
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Project Management

Page 78 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

agency meeting its mission-critical goals and objectives and would require 

a determination as to which individuals have the skills to be dedicated 

project managers and who would supervise the project managers. We also 

reported that AOC had not developed project management-specific 

technical competencies and defining these competencies would be 

important for ensuring that the right people are employed in the right 

positions and that they are routinely held accountable for their work. We 

noted that as a next step, AOC could also identify and implement training 

programs that are linked to the core and technical competencies required 

of project managers.

Actions Taken by AOC: ODC has begun to make some organizational 

changes that are awaiting approval by the COO. These changes include the 

creation of a Project Management Division, which is currently staffed by a 

director and three project managers. AOC is hiring five additional project 

managers using position descriptions specifying the duties and knowledge 

required for the position. The project manager’s duties include providing 

life-cycle project management expertise and coordination from the 

planning stage through post-occupancy evaluation. AOC will also be 

providing all project managers with training based on AOC’s new project 

management manual. Project managers are expected to be dedicated to a 

project for its duration and will report to the Director of Project 

Management. They will be responsible for multidisciplined capital 

improvement projects with budgets of $250,000 or more, while projects 

budgeted at less than $250,000 or involving a single discipline, such as 

lighting retrofits, will continue to be managed by architects or engineers. 

The new Director of Project Management has systematically determined 

the number of project managers needed by estimating the length of time it 

takes to perform each task defined in AOC’s project management guide. 

This enabled him to determine how many projects one project manager 

should be able to manage concurrently. 

The Director of AOC’s HRMD told us that she is working with ODC to 

identify competencies for project managers to help ensure that project 

managers have the skills needed to effectively perform their jobs.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation. While the new organization chart for AOC’s ODC is still 

pending approval by the COO, AOC is creating a Project Management 

Division led at the director level with attendant dedicated project manager 

positions. It is also important that AOC is using a systematic approach to 
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Project Management

Page 79 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

determine project workload and develop a request for additional project 

manager positions. AOC’s systematic approach may help justify AOC’s need 

for additional project managers and manage expectations of its 

stakeholders for projects based on the number of available project 

managers. However, as noted, AOC still does not have the capability of 

producing a unified schedule showing staff resources, which will make it 

difficult to manage staffing levels. AOC is taking the first steps to ensure 

that the right people are employed in the right positions by starting to 

identify competencies for its project management staff, creating position 

descriptions based on those competencies, and using those position 

descriptions as a basis for recruiting and hiring staff.
Page 80 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

Appendix VII

Recycling ApendxiVI

In our January 2003 report, we made three recommendations to help the 

Office of the Architect of the Capitol (AOC) improve its overall approach to 

its recycling program by developing a clear mission and goals, developing a 

performance measurement system to support accomplishing its recycling 

program, and examining the roles and responsibilities of its recycling 

program staff. This appendix describes AOC’s progress to date in 

addressing each of our recommendations. We provide a brief review of why 

we made each recommendation, report the actions that AOC has taken to 

implement the recommendation, and provide our analysis of whether 

AOC’s actions address the underlying issues that caused us to make the 

recommendation in our January 2003 report. 

Recommendation: Develop a clear mission and goals for AOC’s 

recycling program with input from key congressional stakeholders 

as part of its proposed environmental master plan. AOC may want 

to establish reasonable goals based on the total waste stream—

information it plans to obtain as part of its long-term 

environmental management plan—that could potentially be 

recycled.

During our management review, we found that AOC had established neither 

a clear mission statement nor goals for its recycling program. Various 

program-related documents made indirect references to two different 

missions for the program. One mission was to reduce the total amount of 

solid waste sent to landfills, and the other mission was to generate as much 

revenue as possible from the sale of its recyclable materials to a recycling 

contractor. Similarly, we found that AOC had not established any 

measurable goals for its recycling programs. The absence of AOC recycling 

goals did not allow measures to be linked to a desired level of performance, 

and thus AOC could not demonstrate the extent to which performance is 

achieved. We also stated that establishing meaningful goals would require 

collection of certain other information, including information obtained 

from a waste stream analysis.

We concluded that the high levels of contamination present in the materials 

collected in both the Senate and House recycling programs had not allowed 

AOC to achieve either substantial waste reduction or revenue generation
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Recycling

Page 81 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

it might have otherwise achieved.1 By clarifying the mission of the program, 

AOC could design recycling programs to achieve better results. We also 

suggested that, consistent with the communications strategy we discussed 

in our January 2003 report, AOC should involve its congressional 

stakeholders in the process of developing the mission statement for its 

recycling programs. We recommended that AOC develop a clear mission 

and goals for its recycling program with input from key congressional 

stakeholders as part of its proposed environmental master plan. 

Actions Taken by AOC: In its March 2003 draft strategic plan, AOC states 

that it plans to develop a long-range environmental program plan that will 

establish program mission, vision, goals, and measures.2

 The strategic plan 

also states that this environmental program plan would include clarifying 

the mission, goals, and measures of the recycling program—a component 

of pollution prevention. Although, according to its performance plan, AOC 

is a few months behind its scheduled time frame for this work. AOC has 

begun work on both of these projects—the baseline assessment and waste 

stream analysis—and AOC program officials told us that both projects will 

be substantially completed by the end of 2003. These AOC officials also 

advised us that the results of this baseline assessment and waste stream 

analysis would provide a basis for establishing program priorities and 

measuring progress. The performance plan also provides for stakeholder 

participation in this process both before and after the actual environmental 

program planning process occurs; but this has not yet taken place. 

According to AOC’s performance plan, stakeholder involvement is 

scheduled to begin in the second quarter of fiscal year 2004, after 

completion of the baseline assessment and waste stream analysis. 

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation by taking the first steps toward developing a mission and 

goals for its recycling program. Collecting information through its baseline 

assessment and waste stream analysis will provide the factual information 

1

Contamination occurs when potentially recyclable materials are mixed together with other 

categories of recyclables or wet waste. This reduces the value of the recyclable materials 

collected and in some cases, such as when paper is mixed with wet waste, the material may 

no longer be recyclable and must be sent to a landfill.

2

According to the AOC draft strategic plan, the environmental program plan, to be 

completed in 2004, will address a wide spectrum of environmental management initiatives 

including environmentally sensitive planning and design, compliance with applicable 

provisions of environmental regulations (such as clean air, clean water, and solid waste 

disposal), and pollution prevention. 
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Recycling

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AOC needs as a basis for establishing those mission and goal statements. In 

addition, this information will be used in the development of its 

environmental program plan. Also, according to AOC’s draft performance 

plan, its stakeholders will be involved both before and after actual 

development of the environmental program plan, scheduled to begin in the 

third quarter of fiscal year 2004. AOC’s approach to developing its recycling 

program mission and goals within the broader context of an environmental 

program plan, as discussed in its draft strategic and performance plans, is 

reasonable and consistent with our recommendation.

Recommendation: Develop a performance measurement, 

monitoring, and evaluation system that supports accomplishing 

AOC’s recycling mission and goals.

In our January 2003 report, we stated that as AOC revisited its program 

mission, goals, and design, the agency would have an opportunity to 

reexamine its recycling performance measurement system efforts to 

ensure that it had the right type of performance measures to support 

program monitoring and decision making. In addition, we stated that 

monitoring performance against goals would enable AOC program 

managers to identify where performance is lagging, investigate potential 

causes, and identify actions designed to improve performance. We also 

suggested that to support the accomplishment of AOC’s recycling mission 

and goals, the performance measurement system developed should 

(1) show the degree to which the desired results were achieved, (2) be 

limited to the few vital measures needed for decision-making, (3) be 

responsive to multiple priorities, and (4) establish accountability for 

results.

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC stated in its draft strategic and performance 

plans that it would clarify the mission, goals, and measures of the recycling 

program as part of its environmental program planning process, which is 

scheduled to begin in the third quarter of fiscal year 2004 and is expected to 

be complete by the end of calendar year 2004. According to the Safety and 

Environmental Division (SED) director, AOC currently measures and 

tracks several key performance indicators, such as tonnage collected for 

multiple recycling streams and the quantity of material collected for 

recycling that does not meet specifications for reimbursement. The SED 

director also told us that additional action to revise existing and establish 

new measures is underway, including gathering and analyzing data as part 

of the waste stream analysis study. The results from this effort will be used 

to establish performance goals and additional performance measures that 
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Recycling

Page 83 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

are appropriate to the program. This effort is part of a broader AOC 

initiative to develop the environmental program plan.

According to the SED director, AOC plans to develop the environmental 

program plan internally with the option of obtaining consultant services if, 

during the course of the planning process, it finds certain expertise is 

needed but not available on staff. Also according to the SED director, AOC 

has taken steps to increase environmental staffing and contract for 

technical resources necessary to address a variety of environmental issues 

to support the development of the environmental program plan, such as a 

completed best management practices review, a waste stream analysis and 

pollution prevention planning initiative in progress, an environmental 

baseline assessment nearly completed, and an electronic waste recycling 

study. In addition, the SED director also told us that to minimize delays in 

obtaining consultant support, the Environmental Branch has obtained 

funding in the fiscal year 2004 budget to establish an environmental 

contract allowing AOC to more quickly procure consultant services. 

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation. In addition to recommending that AOC develop a 

recycling performance measurement, monitoring, and evaluation system, 

our January 2003 report also suggested certain criteria and processes AOC 

could follow in establishing the recycling performance measures. For 

example, we suggested that AOC take certain steps in developing its 

performance measurement system, such as making sure the recycling 

measures developed show the degree to which the desired results were 

achieved and that AOC use a General Services Administration guide for 

federal agencies that describes the steps an agency could use to measure 

and monitor recycling efforts.3

 However, the development of reasonable 

performance measures can also consider certain other sources, such as 

government or industry benchmarks for recycling programs as well as 

feedback from congressional stakeholders. 

We agree that AOC should not establish performance measures until it has 

obtained the information it needs from the results of the environmental 

baseline and waste stream analysis that will help to establish the 

performance goals of the recycling program. Because AOC has not yet 

identified the performance measures it will use to assess the progress of its 

3

U.S. General Services Administration, Recycling Program Desk Guide, (Washington, D.C.: 

2001).
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Page 84 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

overall environmental program plan, we cannot assess at this time whether 

the resulting measures will be consistent with the elements of a 

performance measurement system as discussed in our January 2003 report. 

It is important that AOC specify the steps it will take and the information 

sources it will use to develop its recycling program performance measures.

Recommendation: Examine the roles and responsibilities of AOC’s 

recycling program staff to ensure that they are performing the right 

jobs with the necessary authority, and holding the staff accountable 

for achieving program and agency results through AOC’s 

performance management system.

The roles and responsibilities of AOC’s recycling program staff members 

have evolved in recent years, without the guidance of a clearly defined 

mission and goals. We reported in our January 2003 report that AOC had 

recently changed the responsibilities of its recycling program management 

positions to provide a greater focus on program planning and evaluation. 

However, these program managers reported that much of their time was 

spent on day-to-day program implementation activities, leaving little time 

to fulfill their expanded roles. 

In addition, we found that the existing structure did not provide a clear 

mechanism to determine individual accountability for achieving results. 

Under the existing structure, jurisdictional recycling program managers are 

accountable only to their jurisdictional management, i.e., the Senate and 

House office buildings superintendents. The AOC Resource Conservation 

Manager, responsible for AOC-wide recycling programs, had no authority 

over either the jurisdictional managers or the recycling program managers 

in those jurisdictions. In addition, we stated in our January 2003 report that 

approximately 875 bargaining unit and trade union employees, such as the 

recycling workers and custodial staff that collect recyclable materials, 

were not covered by AOC’s employee performance management system, 

PCES. 

Actions Taken by AOC: AOC has created two new positions, an 

Environmental Branch Manager and Environmental Technician within SED 

that have duties and responsibilities related to the recycling program. In 

addition to these positions in SED, AOC has also filled a previously vacant 

Assistant Recycling Program Manager position within the House officebuilding jurisdiction. AOC officials said that these new positions would 

provide additional resources for improved planning and evaluation of the 

recycling program. 
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Recycling

Page 85 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

In addition, each jurisdiction reported that it evaluated respective recycling 

operations and made changes in staffing and organization plans, some of 

which have been implemented. The Senate jurisdiction examined its 

recycling function and determined in May 2003 that the jurisdiction’s 

recycling staff, then assigned to one of three different organizational units, 

should be consolidated into one division reporting to the Recycling 

Program Manager. In the justification for making the change, the 

Superintendent for the Senate jurisdiction stated that, because of the 

diluted span of control and lack of accountability that existed under the 

present organizational structure, his jurisdiction could not achieve the 

desired level of program performance and execution. The Senate 

jurisdictional proposal also included adding four positions to the recycling 

collection staff. In addition, according to the Senate recycling program 

manager, this proposal has been submitted to AOC management and is 

pending approval. 

Similarly, to address staffing and organization issues, management in the 

House jurisdiction decided to replace its part-time recycling collection 

staff—plagued by a high turnover rate and consequently a constant need to 

fill vacancies and train new staff— with full-time staff. This staffing change 

was accomplished using the same number of full-time equivalent positions 

as provided under the prior staffing plan. The House jurisdiction also 

implemented a pilot program to evaluate the feasibility of using the 

designated recycling staff to collect both recyclable materials and garbage 

from the House office buildings. According to the Deputy Superintendent 

of the House Office Buildings, based on the results of this pilot program, 

the House jurisdictional management decided to permanently implement 

the changes tested in the pilot program.

These changes, however, did not affect the supervisory and reporting 

relationships between the recycling program manager and the collection 

staff. In the House jurisdiction, the collection staff reports through line 

supervisors to a night House superintendent that provides direct line 

supervision of employees who carry out various housekeeping, janitorial, 

and emergency maintenance functions during nonbusiness hours. The 

House Recycling Program Manager has no direct authority over the 

collection staff, but stated that she conducts regular inspections of the 

recycling collection operations, including both individual office 

compliance with the level of source separation implemented in those 

offices and the collection workers’ performance of their duties. She stated 

further that she has a good working relationship with the collection 

workers’ direct line supervisors and reports any problems she identifies 
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during the course of her inspections to them. The House Deputy 

Superintendent affirmed the relationship between the House Recycling 

Program Manager and the collection workers’ direct line supervisors and 

told us that the House jurisdiction management has no current plans to 

change the reporting relationship between the House Recycling Program 

manager and the collection staff.

The House jurisdiction does plan to take action that could provide 

increased accountability for achieving recycling program results. The 

Deputy House Superintendent told us that a recycling program element is 

now included in the Performance Communication Evaluation System 

(PCES) of the staff that directly supervise the recycling collection workers, 

holding them accountable for the collection of recyclables by their staff. 

Even with these changes, full accountability for achieving recycling 

program results cannot be established because, in both the Senate and 

House jurisdictions, the collection workers are bargaining unit and trade 

union employees and are not covered by PCES. According to AOC’s HRMD 

director, AOC is currently negotiating with the unions to include these 

employees within PCES.

GAO Analysis: AOC is making progress in addressing our 

recommendation by evaluating the roles and responsibilities of its 

recycling program staff and increasing accountability for program results 

through its employee performance management system. The two positions 

AOC has filled should make more time available for recycling program 

planning and evaluation activities. The staffing and organization 

evaluations completed in the Senate and House jurisdictions and the 

actions taken by AOC as a result of those evaluations may improve the 

recycling programs operation in those jurisdictions. 

Moreover, the proposed Senate reorganization of its reporting relationship 

between the recycling program manager and staff will provide more direct 

accountability for achieving AOC’s organizational goals in its recycling 

program by providing a direct line of supervision between recycling 

program management and the staff responsible for the collection and 

processing of recyclable materials. Through the added element now 

incorporated into PCES for House recycling supervisors, AOC is working 

to increase accountability for achieving recycling program results. 
Page 87 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol ApendxiVI

Note: GAO comments 

supplementing those in 

the report text appear 

at the end of this 

appendix.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 88 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

See comment 1.

See comment 2.

See comment 3.

See comment 4.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 89 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

See comment 5.

See comment 6.

See comment 7.

See comment 8.

See comment 9.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 90 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

See comment 10.

See comment 11.

See comment 12.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 91 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

See comment 13. 

See comment 14.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 92 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

See comment 15.

See comment 16.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 93 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

See comment 17.

See comment 18.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 94 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

See comment 19.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 95 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

See comment 20.

See comment 21.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 96 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

See comment 22.

See comment 23.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 97 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

See comment 24.

See comment 25. 
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 98 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

See comment 26-29.

See comment 30.

See comment 31.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 99 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

See comment 32.

See comment 33.

See comment 34.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 100 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

See comment 35.

See comment 36.

See comment 37.

See comment 38.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 101 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

See comment 39.

See Comment 40.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 102 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

See comment 41.

See coment 42.

See comment 43.

See comment 44.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 103 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

See comment 45.

See comment 46.

See comment 47.

See comment 48.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 104 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

See comment 49.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 105 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

See comment 50.

See comment 51.

See comment 52.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 106 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

GAO Comments 1. AOC agrees with our recommendation and agrees to take appropriate 

follow-up actions.

2. AOC agrees with this finding and agrees to take appropriate follow-up 

actions.

3. See comment 1. 

4. AOC plans are consistent with our findings and have provided additional 

information on its recent plans and actions that we will assess in our 

subsequent semi-annual reviews. 

5. See comment 4.

6. See comment 4.

7. The text has been modified to reflect AOC’s response. 

8. See comment 1.

9. See comment 4.

10. AOC’s comments concerning our draft report’s treatment of AOC’s 

action on our financial management recommendation were technical in 

nature, and, as appropriate, changes were made to the final report.

11. See comment 10.

12. See comment 10.

13. See comment 10.

14. We have modified our report to reflect AOC’s position that the cited 

documents are not draft. 

15. We agree with AOC’s comment, and state in our report that AOC’s first 

step to implementing the framework was to score and rank projects for 

fiscal year 2004. However, this scoring and ranking of projects for the 

upcoming fiscal year are project selection, not control, practices. Further, 

while we do not question AOC’s statement in its comments that its 

investment management boards are beginning to evaluate IT investments, 
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Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 107 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

AOC’s comments did not address what these evaluations entail; and, our 

review showed that AOC’s IT investment management framework does not 

specify how the agency will identify, track, and manage IT resources or 

ensure that projects support agency business needs, both of which are key 

IT investment control activities. Therefore, our position remains that AOC 

is focusing first on selecting, rather than controlling, investments.

We support AOC’s cited recent revision to the composition of its 

investment review board, and have recognized AOC’s statement in our 

report. We look forward to receiving a revision of the board’s charter 

reflecting this membership change. 

16. We agree that a chief enterprise architect position has been requested in 

AOC’s fiscal year 2005 budget, and that it has been using contractor 

assistance in developing an enterprise architecture. Our report recognizes 

both of these facts. Also, while we do not question AOC’s statement that it 

has developed a detailed plan addressing resources, we have not received a 

copy of this plan. 

17. We agree that AOC’s IT investment framework contains the evaluation 

criteria specified in AOC’s comment. However, our recommendation is for 

the agency to implement practices in our IT investment management guide 

associated with a corporate portfolio-based investment management 

process for controlling and selecting all proposed and ongoing IT 

investments. As discussed in comment 15, AOC has thus far focused on 

selecting among proposed new investments, to the exclusion of ongoing 

projects, and it has yet to define how it is controlling ongoing projects. 

We agree that our previous recommendation did not reference our 

architecture management maturity guide, but rather the Chief Information 

Officer’s Council practical guide. However, our maturity guide is based on 

the content of the practical guide, arranging this content into a series of 

five maturity levels. Further, our previous recommendation was intended 

to provide AOC with the basis for taking the first step toward architecture 

management maturity, and coincides with the first stage of our maturity 

framework. Our new recommendations build on and complement our 

previous recommendation, and thus we agree that AOC will need to evolve 

its architecture plans to progress beyond this initial step. 

18. We have modified our report to reflect this clarification. 
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Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 108 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

19. We do not question that AOC has taken the eight steps it cites since 

completing its IT investment framework, but do not agree that the agency 

has focused on controlling its existing investments for the following 

reasons. With respect to step 1, AOC’s scoring and ranking of then 

proposed fiscal year 2004 projects are project selection, not control, 

practices. Regarding steps 2 and 3, while we do not question AOC’s 

statements that it has assigned its project management board responsibility 

for measuring project progress and that its investment management boards 

are beginning to evaluate IT investments, AOC’s comments did not address 

the extent of these project reviews. Our review showed that AOC’s IT 

investment management framework does not specify how the agency will 

identify, track, and manage IT resources, a key IT investment control 

activity. With respect to the biweekly status meetings that AOC states have 

been occurring for almost two years, we reported in 2003 that the agency 

had not developed the processes needed to manage and oversee all AOC 

existing projects.1

 Concerning step 4, we support AOC’s cited recent 

revision to the composition of its investment review board, and have 

recognized AOC’s statement in our report. 

With regard to the fifth step cited by AOC, we do not question that AOC is 

operating its IT investment board, but it is important to note that the AOC 

IT investment framework describes the project management board as the 

control and oversight board for ongoing investments. Concerning step 6, 

the nature and extent of AOC cited oversight of ongoing projects is 

unknown because AOC’s comments did not address what is entailed in the 

project management board and the biweekly status meetings, and the 

framework does not specify how the agency will identify, track, and 

manage IT projects. Regarding step 7, we support the use of tools to 

identify, track and manage IT resources. Concerning the last step AOC 

cited, we view the interviewing of stakeholders as a positive step toward 

ensuring that each IT project supports the organization’s business needs. 

20. See comments 15 and 19. 

21. As mentioned in comment 14, we have modified our report to reflect 

AOC’s position that the architecture products are not draft and have been 

approved by the Deputy Chief of Staff. We have also recognized the 

1

U.S. General Accounting Office, Architect of the Capitol: Management and Accountability 

Framework Needed for Organizational Transformation, GAO-03-231 (Washington, D.C.: 

Jan. 17, 2003).
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 109 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

statement that a detailed resource plan has been developed, as well as the 

revised date for implementing the architecture. Our report already 

addressed the status of the additional funding request.

22. See comment 17.

23. We do not question these statements and note that our report already 

includes this information. 

24. We have modified our report to reflect the recent steps AOC’s 

comments state that it has taken to begin establishing and implementing an 

information security program.

25. The Safety Communication Plan was not raised during interviews with 

AOC officials. AOC has provided additional information that we will assess 

in our subsequent semi-annual reviews. 

26. The text has been modified to reflect AOC’s response. 

27. Our report does not overlook the Job Hazard Analysis (JHA) process 

within the Hazard Assessment and Control Policy and states that the JHA 

process is, in fact, a key component of this policy. During our data 

collection period, AOC had only completed a JHA in two jurisdictions. AOC 

has provided additional information that we will assess in our subsequent 

semi-annual reviews. 

28. The baseline safety and environmental assessment mentioned by AOC 

was not brought forth during our data collection and analysis period. 

However, we do recognize in the draft that the Hazard Assessment and 

Control policy will identify hazards associated with job tasks, as well as 

identify corrective actions taken to abate these hazards.

29. This comment refers to the recycling appendix. These actions were 

taken outside the timeframe of our review and will be assessed in our 

subsequent semi-annual reviews. 

30. See comment 29.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 110 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

31. Information provided by AOC officials during our data collection period 

was that they had requested significant and permanent increases in their 

training budget. The text has been modified to reflect AOC’s response.

32. AOC’s response does not change our assessment that no safety policy 

has been fully implemented. New information provided to us was not 

raised during our review period and therefore will be assessed in 

subsequent semi-annual reviews. 

33. We continue to believe that the performance measure identified in the 

report for the objective “enhance employee awareness of and involvement 

in all aspects of safety and health”—publication of meeting minutes-- is not 

results oriented. A good metric to assess employee awareness would 

necessarily be based upon employee responses. In fact, AOC recognized 

that its performance measures in assessing its safety policies are immature. 

The text has been modified to include the AOC’s Injury and Illness rate for 

FY2003. 

34. The text has been modified to clarify the need for extending the original 

time frame to implement the safety policies.

35. These actions were taken outside the timeframe of our review and will 

be assessed in our subsequent semi-annual reviews.

36. The text has been modified to clarify the added functions AOC may 

purchase for the FMA system in order to expand its capabilities. 

37. The text has been modified to reflect the current uses of the FMA 

system.

38. See comment 28.

39. During our data collection period, the AOC had completed a JHA in two 

jurisdictions. These actions were taken outside the timeframe of our 

review and will be assessed in our subsequent semi-annual reviews.

40. The text has been modified in order to clarify FMA system access 

issues.

41. Our finding focuses on the need to report illnesses and injuries among 

jurisdictions in a comprehensive and consistent manner. Indeed, through 

its development of its Incident Investigation Module, AOC underscores the 
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 111 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

need for such a reporting system that tracks data across jurisdictions. We 

acknowledge that AOC has a Workers Compensation Tracking System for 

recording and tracking injuries and illnesses. 

42. These actions were taken outside the timeframe of our review and will 

be assessed in our subsequent semi-annual reviews. The text has been 

modified to clarify AOC’s current initiatives in this area.

43. The text has been modified to include additional methods used to 

evaluate training.

44. We encourage the AOC to move strategically towards an integrated 

system that links identification of hazards with employee training needs.

45. We encourage the AOC to strategically identify data access issues 

related to employee training records.

46. During our review, AOC management informed us that medical 

information obtained from Office of the Attending Physician (OAP) exams 

were not being shared with AOC officials because of confidentiality issues. 

The sharing of these data, while addressing confidentiality issues, could 

benefit AOC in its efforts to identify and combat health-related trends 

among AOC employees.

47. AOC’s response does not indicate that the Safety, Health and 

Environmental Council (SHEC) have identified strategies to reduce 

workers’ compensation costs. We continue to believe that the SHEC offers 

opportunities to identify strategies to address this issue. 

48. We reported this information in our strategic human capital 

management and project management appendixes in our discussion of 

competencies.

49. In August 2003, AOC provided us with an update to their original 

schedule for the Master Plan. We compared this updated schedule to the 

original schedule in the March 2003 draft performance plan and used this 

information for our analysis. AOC did not provide us with any other 

schedule information against which to analyze their progress. Therefore, 

we presented the information made available to us as of November 2003. 

50. We have made the appropriate change in the text.
Appendix VIII

Comments from the Architect of the Capitol

Page 112 GAO-04-299 Status Report on Management Review Recommendations

51. While we recognize that the recycling contractor separates the material 

collected from AOC and recycles the recyclable portion, it is also true that 

office paper including both white (high grade) paper and mixed grade (both 

white and colored office paper) that is contaminated with wet waste 

(primarily food and beverage waste) can no longer be recycled and must be 

sent to a landfill. 

52. In addition to stating that the Senate jurisdiction proposal included 

adding four positions to the recycling collection staff, we also stated in our 

draft that the proposal recommended consolidating the recycling positions 

into one organizational unit to address the diluted span of control and lack 

of accountability that existed under the present organizational structure. 

AOC did not comment on whether it had approved the proposed 

reorganization. Increasing accountability for obtaining recycling goals was 

the principal point of our discussion and increasing staff without changing 

the organizational structure would not improve accountability. 

(450225)
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